


Turnabout is Fair Play

by Runlights



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Food Issues, Fugue, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5589433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runlights/pseuds/Runlights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would an agency do if they could turn loose their newest weapon upon their enemies? What if that weapon was once a friend turned enemy? Would there be any hesitation in setting it loose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Order Through Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, in part, by asocialconstruct. My body really wasn’t ready. I re-read the fic that was written, and it inspired in me the idea of how much of a cockroach Rumlow is to survive as much as he did. However, he's not wholly intact.
> 
> The Christmas season was good to me. Let me be good to all of you by posting this. I hope the holidays were cheery for all.
> 
> My work is, as always, not beta-read. Apologies in advance for any glaring mistakes that are found. For some reason, my fingers were typing right tonight.

*****

The scent of harsh chemicals had faded to the point where his poor sense of smell couldn’t pick it up anymore. His scalp itched, as did what was left of his eyebrows, but that was pretty typical these days as the area around his eyes often tingled with the urge to itch. He didn’t scratch though as it was all a matter of wasted energy and motions, and there was something oddly familiar about it. He collected the familiar sensations and horded them away like treasure. Those were all he really had anymore, wasn’t it?

Sometimes _it_ was his brain that itched, like the tingle of a thought worming through his grey matter. Sometimes _it_ really needed to be scratched and other times, it was a distracting annoyance. Sometimes _it_ was nothing he could correctly fathom in terms he recognized.

His handlers knew when he was having one of the big urges to scratch because he apparently took on a particular expression on his face. He didn’t know what it was, but as soon as it was recognized by those who put him to work, there were fingers snapping in front of his face and a call to attention. He was to be in the here and the now, to live for the mission and the details therein. If he strayed, innocent and skilled people could die.

They didn’t want that. He didn’t want that. At least, he was under the impression he didn’t want that.

He pushed around the food on the tray resting on his knees, and he had eaten enough calories that he knew there would be no fuss over what he left behind. Corn mush, bland mashed potatoes, and some kind of watery meatloaf. There were no added spices save perhaps a little salt, but he had a poor sense of taste as well. Most things bore the illusion of cement dust anyway, and he wasted as little time eating as he could.

Odd, he didn’t know why. Outside of training and those days where he geared up, eating was about the only activity he was given on a regular basis. Something always seemed to be missing.

A lot was missing.

The scarring pulled as his blond eyebrows knit together, his fork stopping on his metal lunch tray. His memories were missing, he knew. The most he had was cold. Wet cold. Acrid wet cold and then…

His head snapped up from staring at nothing in particular as the metal door to his small room was opened. His handler stood there looking at him with the usual flicker of disgust before it was gone and a bright smile came to the dark-haired man’s face. The illusion wasn’t lost on him; he couldn’t remember anything before he had woke up warm and assured of his purpose, but he wasn’t stupid.

People hated him. He was used to the looks of disgust and hate; he was actually used to being spit on too. He had forced himself to stand for when he was sometimes struck, though a part of him itched to retaliate, to wrap his fingers around their miserable lowly throats and just _squeeze_. A part of him knew that the struggle would be the best part. The scratching fingers, the wheezing breathing, the bash of legs, the reddening and then purpling tint of skin the longer that the event went on. Their mockery and dislike _deserved_...

“Whoa, someone needs their medication,” his handler said gamely, drawing him from his straying thoughts. Both of those things happened around this time of day; they said he was squirrelly.

“Yessir,” he replied and set his tray aside on his small bunk. He could smash the man in the face with it, wipe that fake smile off. “Wandering a bit.”

His handler spoke to a white coated doctor that lingered by the doorway and his pills were produced. The battle-hardened man - what was his name anyway? - stepped into the room with him and offered the three small white pills, the little stamped on number of twenty-five mocking him. He still obediently took them even as the surge of dislike reached his expression. He didn’t like this man, but he had to obey. No one else was around to give him direction, and the sensation of being lost was far worse than chewing down his loathing in isolation.

“Take your medication,” his handler ordered firmly. Something must have continued to show on his face because there soon came the added, “no pills, no op.”

There was no hesitation of slipping the three little pills into his mouth and swallowing them dry. He took the small dixie cup full of water and drank it down, washing away any remnant taste that might have eventually reached him. At the single hand gesture, he opened his mouth and moved his tongue around to prove that there were no pills hiding to be spat when no one was looking. He received a near-mocking slap on his cheek as praise.

Like he had done well. Like he had an option.

His handler took a small flexible collar from the white coat, offered a superior smile that was supposed to comfort him and affixed it around his throat. It was smooth and thick like leather, but the material was more like how webbed kevlar felt. It was tight around his throat, constant contact was the point, but he still had to flex his jaw and crane his neck to settle it comfortably.

Within five minutes, the nerves that seemed to pick at him settled down again. He flexed his shoulders and rose from his bunk to the balls of his feet, shaking out his arms and getting comfortable in his own skin. There was a moment when the bubble of warning that wanted to rise in his brain, the worm that slithered across his streamline thoughts came up and then… just like that, the bubble burst and the worm dried up in the heat of drug-focused clarity.

His expression cleared, and his world came to sharp focus again, all those little annoying details fading away as nothing but background noise. He flexed his hands and slapped them on his thighs before he reached up to sweep some of his bleach-blond hair from falling into his eyes. He looked at his handler and nodded his readiness.

“Thadda boy, Frag. Let’s gear up and move out,” his handler said, clapping him on the shoulder. Like he was one of the old boys. Like he wasn’t an amnesic prisoner of opportunity. Like he wasn’t the most expendable member of the team.

There was just focus. It was time to fake his way to convincing himself that acceptance wasn’t what he was looking for in the confused haze he otherwise lived in. The operation was everything.

*****

He was called a _HYDRA specialist_ , the team member that always performed the initial and final sweep of any little spider hole that was suspected to contain even a small fragment of the terrorist organization. He was the agent that put their foot on the door first to kick it down and sweep inside. He was the man who found all those little nooks and crannies that could hide a roach just waiting for the exterminators to leave. He was the one that instinctively knew the layout of most of the buildings that they were set loose into, zeroing in on the most important details which limited the escape of rogue agents that were either killed or captured.

A part of him knew it had to be because he had been to those places before. He couldn’t remember the circumstances, but he wasn’t stupid. Once, it was good blueprints. Twice, it was luck. Third time, it was a trend. Fourth, it was edging towards impossibility. Fifth, it was because he had a previous working knowledge of the places they were sent into.

When he questioned, they took him off of the operations. He was dosed up high to keep the headaches down, the questions locked up in his brain, but the punishment of his isolate fresh and clear in his mind. Then, when enough time passed, they would reintroduce him to training, planning and then grace him with an operation when he voiced no questions as to how he knew. He had begun to swallow his questions with his pills. Being inactive was far worse than wondering how he knew the layouts because the truth was something that he apparently had no right to.

Pay-back. He understood that. That’s what it was, wasn’t it?

If he performed, good things or at least an end of the daily monotony would occur. If he was bad, he was left alone and set into one of the _nightmare waking_ places. He might not remember those places, but they were always worse than being isolated away. They edged at him like a phobia, a deeply ingrained terror which sometimes woke him in the night.

There were no questions worth those places which were deemed sequestered to a fugue state. If he didn’t know they existed, he didn’t have to be frightened of them until they appeared.

Frag had learned quickly to not question. He performed loyally and admirably. He did as ordered.

*****

“Man down!”

“Ambus--!”

“Jesus fuck they’re everywhere! Request back-up, a-sap!”

“Someone bring the heat!”

“I’m hit! I’m hit! I’m…!”

He looked down at his handler as the radios buzzed with activity, sometimes voices yelling something, other times just bursts of gunfire or explosions. He sat with his Steyr AUG across his legs, immobile as his eyes drank in the sight of the dark-haired man bleeding out at his booted feet, his breath making no noise as it passed through the custom-made half mask. The white teeth of a skeleton’s mouth leered down at the dying man gasping like a fish. It must have looked like death, he thought, which was probably fitting given the gut wound his handler was sporting. There was no amount of critical support in the field for that. His handler was lucky to have been dragged out in the first place, and he had long ago began to ignore the blood that had soaked into his tactical vest. Watching his handler fade away was far more important to him.

The radio technician, the only non-combatant on the team, was madly trying to keep track of the movements of team, but he could tell that chaos reigned. The operation was well and truly fubar, and something about that felt right in his brain. His blood stirred in his veins even as he sat calmly, the straps holding on the mask tugging at his blond hair, as good a hold order as ever. Whoever was in that building was tearing into the SHIELD team, and if he flicked his eyes just so, he could catch the little lights indicating agent lifesigns cutting out. So this was a HYDRA special team, was it? He was almost thrilled to think of standing against them.

He probably shouldn’t have taken those pills in his handler’s pocket. There had been no order not to, but neither had he asked for permission. He wanted the clarity, the focus. Now he had this.

Slowly, he lifted his foot and set it on his handler’s throat, gentle and subtle as the man held tight to the welling blood from the abdomen. He applied pressure, but the his handler was too out of it to really notice at first, only the widening of eyes that flicked around searching for the source of the new discomfort.

“Withdraw! Withdraw!”

“...need an evac…”

“Where the fuck are they?”

“Sonuva…!”

“Report! Report! Can someone clarify the current status of the mission objectives?” The technician sitting at the controls was looking at the flickering lights of life and how they went out one-by-one. People were obviously out of position, scattered and uncoordinated. Not many team members left now.

Suddenly, there was a phone call, which took attention away from the morbid screaming match playing out over the comms. “No sir, I’m losing contact with Echo squad. All of Delta squad is dead. We require immediate back-up or evacuation!”

His foot continued with its gradual pressure as the communication technician floundered with a lack of personnel to deploy or a way to withdraw the team safely. His handler gave a little thrash and then lay still, growing glassy eyed and blood still pooling on the truck floor. He shifted his foot to the floor again, sitting quiet. He wasn’t allowed to engage without a direct order, and his handler was dead. It was mercy, not disobedience.

“Please oh God please…”

“Wallins is down! In pursuit...” Static.

“Enemy agent neutralized....!”

“No sir, I don’t have anyone left. Riggins is dead,” the radio operator said, an edge of hysteria slipping into the man’s tone. “How do I know? He’s laying in a pool of his own blood at the end of the truck! I… yes, he’s here.”

He turned his head slightly, watching the three little lights still on the playing field. His own device was off because he was outside of the active combat zone, as ordered by his dead handler. Interesting that the man’s name had been Riggins; he would have to remember that, not that it mattered. He’d probably be given another handler after this fuck-up was over. Why did that name _feel_ familiar though?

“Frag.”

He lifted his eyes from the lights to stare at the communication technician. The phone was still held up to the balding man’s ear, and they stared at each other for a long moment. He inclined his head slightly, a silent inquiry.

“I’m sending you back in to recover the team, Frag.”

He rose to his feet in a single smooth motion, his Steyr AUG coming to be tucked over his elbow as he pulled on his black tactical gloves and turned on his life beacon. He shuffled his shoulders and stepped over the stiffening body of his handler, shoving open the door to the van and stepping down. The thrill of adrenaline began to stir his blood, and he glanced back, looking like death with his grinning half-skull on the lower half of his face.

“The enemy agents?”

The communication technician was staring at him like the man had just let go of the leash from a dangerous pitbull in a park full of school-age children. The man didn’t even warrant the necessary ‘sir’ to acknowledge rank. The smell of fear and discomfort brought a smile to his lips. Like old times. Huh, that was a strange thing to think.

He paused in moving off back to the cement factory. “Orders on the enemy agents?”

“Kill them,” the technician said softly. “Kill them all, Frag. Don’t hesitate.”

He nodded his head and shifted his Steyr to his hands and then headed off into the darkness. He had his orders to pick up three little lights and dispatch any enemy agents that happened to be left alive. If he was an enemy agent, where would he hide?

*****

The name Frag was clearly a shortening of the word _fragment_. He had no idea how it had come to be applied to him, let alone be used permanently as the name that he was called. He had to have had a name before he had woken up in the hospital, but no one called him by anything but Frag anymore. There were times that he didn’t warrant anything but the words ‘hey you’, but that was generally early on when he had been released into SHIELD’s care and their rehabilitation program.

There had been others like him, agents who had been injured in the fighting of the Triskelion. Many were in varying stages of rehabilitation and reassignment to various jobs. They didn’t interact much, but there was a general distribution of the people in that small school room. Those that were given many options for where they could go and those of them who were given one option and trained for that occupation only.

For some reason, he was the only candidate in the program called ‘pure’. The other one-job-only people wore distant expressions more often than he did, weren’t able to pick up or recall skills easily, and some after private rehab sessions came back drooling and only able to piss themselves. His private rehabilitation involved questions and fugue blanked areas.

Three of the people who were like him that had been shot and killed returning to their rooms one day. Suddenly the classroom was no longer available and he was separated out to finish his rehabilitation in the room that he later was assigned as ‘home’. He was put into the field under a twelve-man team as soon as he was cleared for combat. That’s when he became Frag most because there was a lack of anything else to call him.

He was little more of a fragment of his former self. The name was fitting. It was like slipping on an old personal glove, the fit perfect in all the right places. Now if only they didn’t make him wear a collar like a dog every day of his life.

*****

Frag stepped over the corpse of a fallen SHIELD agent, his boots moving soundlessly as he traveled down the hallway, ignoring the cement silos on either side of his travels. There were lights blinking as if some emergency had cleared the building, but this place had long ago been condemned and the activities moved to a state-of-the-art plant miles from here. The place had gathered a thin layer of cement dust that stirred when he walked, swirling around his boots but also allowing him to know where others had traveled before him.

However, the fact that there were lights meant that this was owned by the terrorist organization called HYDRA. He had been told that they owned a lot of places that people wouldn’t expect, and that was why it was so important that he go in first. He had a knack for knowing where to go. Someone had turned on the power here as a sign that it was a nest of terrorism. That was the way of things; he didn’t question it.

He moved down one hallway carefully and stopped in a cross-section, his eyes sweeping the area to spot an agent - HYDRA by the civvies - dead on the gangplank two stories up. Blood dripped down and hit the cement floor making soft ‘pit, drip, pit’ sounds, and he simply turned his head and closed his eyes for a few seconds, getting a feel for the place.

Deciding on his course, he moved across the corridor and down the lefthand hallway, sticking to what shadows there were. He approached the two bodies that there were down on his side of the hallway, two SHIELD agents, one clearly having been trying to assist the other out. They had been dead early enough that their limbs were stiffening up, and he took two grenades from them and hooked them on his tactical vest.

He remained crouched as he tilted his head at the sound of whispers. Down the hallway two people rushed passed, heading beyond him and not even glancing to where he was. One was limping badly, doing a soldierly crow hop with each hitch to the step and hissing like an angry bee at the other agent.

He reached up a finger to press on the call-out button on his ear communicator and stopped. There was nothing to report. He had found dead SHIELD agents and about to be dead HYDRA ones. The communication technician had nothing for him, no orders to bind him, no mewling to do more than raise a headache, no calls to return.

Frag was on his own. For some reason, this bore a sensation of _rightness_. Here was Frag, an amnesic who was going to take on the world. Or at least the part of world that was contained in an shut-down cement factory. It was better than an interrogation room.

Slowly, he rose to a half-crouch and began to pick his way down the hallway after the two agents, his ears pricked for sound as he maneuvered to the end and pressed his back against a steel stairwell that led to the upper level. He waited a moment and then craned his neck down the hallway, but there was no sign of where the two HYDRA agents had gone. Those might have been the only two left.

He eased around the corner, picking up his pace as he ghosted down the hallway, stepping over another body that was making one of those soft death-rattles. He stopped and peered into the woman’s face, one of the SHIELD Echo squad, but her eyes were set straight ahead of her. She would die any minute.

He extracted his knife from his boot and pressed the tip against her fluttering jugular. She had never been particularly cruel to him; she had taken the stance that he was a piece of equipment for the operation and so long as he did what he was ordered to do, she left him to his own devices. She had been a good agent, he decided. She knew her way around a knife better than most.

He slit her throat quietly, wiping the blood on her uniform before he tucked the blade away and rose. He left her there, cold and dead as the rest of the people in this place. That was as close to mercy as he would bother to give.

Down the hallway he went, pausing at each intersection before simply continuing on the straight deeper and deeper into the factory until there was a faint bloom of light at the far end of the hallway. He switched the side of his approach so that he was coming down on the same side as the doorway, keeping his motions silent even as voices filtered out as he began to get closer. He paused just to listen in order to get a sense for how many agents were inside.

“...gotta go…”

“Is Jenson stabilized?”

“...not yet…”

“Then we aren’t leaving. Tend your wounds, get a count on our ammunition, and force down something to eat. We move out as soon as it’s safe to move her.”

There was a shift of people in the room, and he counted at least two separate foot falls. Both sounded heavy and one with a clear hitch to the step. He suspected there was at least three, possibly four, enemy agents in the room, given that whoever Jenson was, she had to be tended by someone. That left hitch-step, the commander, and whoever had been running with hitch-step down the hallway as viable fighting agents.

Frag eased closer to the door, careful so that none of his uniform equipment made contact with the wall. He settled just outside of it and peeked to one side, but outside of the door hanging on its hinges indicating that this was a staff room, he couldn’t tell the layout. Of course, he somehow instinctively knew that he had to go left as soon as he stepped in, it was the kind of gut reaction that he was used to by now. Survival instincts he had started to call them.

“What about these two?” Ah, that would be the fourth member of the group. A man.

“They are the last of their team. We shoot them before we leave, and if they are good boys, I’ll even keep it to one bullet.” That was the commander. Guy knew how to make an impression.

“They’ll send another team soon, you realize?”

“Shut your hole, Martinez.”

“Just sayin’.”

“And when I want to value your opinion on our situation, I’ll let you know. Until then, try not to bleed out on the floor.”

He shifted, feeling for the readiness of his Steyr and deeply decided to consider just rolling in a grenade. It would be quick and easy, and he could follow it up. He wasn’t allowed grenades in case he got it in his head to blow up himself and his team. There was a distinct lack of trust where he was concerned, which was hilarious since they gave him bullets and a knife.

He pulled a fragmentation grenade and rolled it in his palm, feeling the weight and rightness of it as he slowly lowered himself to a crouch. He set his thumb on the pin to pull it but froze when someone inside issued a soft gurgled laugh.

“They’ll send him in.” Was that a SHIELD agent?

“I’ll pull out the rest of your fingernails if you don’t shut up,” Martinez grumbled.

“Send who in?”

“Rollins, don’t listen to his oogie-boogie nonsense.” There was a hiss of pain and then silence. It was poignant, and he knew this was the perfect opportunity to roll his grenade in. He hesitated.

“Answer me. Who are they going to send in?”

“Frag,” the SHIELD agent said. “They could care less if he lives or dies, so I bet he’s on his way. Higher ups love when he sniffs out HYDRA agents. He’s an expert…”

There was a fit of coughing. He couldn’t tell who it was from, but it seemed to come from the left hand side of the room. Good, he was going to be moving in that direction soon enough.

He shifted, gently pulling the pin on the grenade and then setting it on the floor, rolling it into the room at an angle. He moved away from the doorway and took up his Steyr AUG as he counted down the three seconds.

“Riley, finish there and make another sweep,” the commander ordered.

“HOLY SH--!”

There was a rocking explosion, dust and wood shards blowing from the doorway. The door itself slammed into the wall on which it had been tentatively leaning and then broke off its hinges to fall to the floor. He took in a deep breath and then rolled around the corner to enter the room in order to sweep it despite the limited visibility.

He almost tripped over a body on the floor, too cut up to even identify. He could tell based on that where hs grenade had settled and moved beyond it deeper into the room. It was probably large, but any tables or chairs that might have been here were either long gone or stacked against a wall he had yet to find. There was debris to move around, mostly equipment or chunks from the walls that scattered on the floor.

The next two corpses came out of the dusty smoke clouds like driftwood through fog. He paused to make certain they were dead and would have moved on if that one face didn't stare up at him. She had been pretty, he decided, though not particularly feminine. Tough, he thought. She bore a look of someone who was no-nonsense and able and willing to play with the big boys without ever backing down, efficient and shrewd in her workings.

This was Jensen, wasn't it? He noted the bleeding gut wound, but the grenade had obviously had the final role to play in her demise.

The young man next to her had clearly been the one trying to stabilize her condition. He had taken a piece of shrapnel to the eye as a mortal wounding, though the man was torn up in other places. A kid to his eyes. A dead kid, and Frag wasted no time on the dead.

He moved off and found a wall, his Steyr in his right hand as he followed the wall with his left until he found the two men of the SHIELD team. Both had bound hands and feet, and one was very clearly dead. The other he had to move around to and drop into a crouch to feel for a pulse. It was there, slow and thready. Normally, he would check over the room for remaining bodies, but he was confident with the placement of his grenade given the damage already caused.

Frag checked his 'teammate' over for injury and found many defensive wounds and obvious torture ones. There wasn't enough blood to indicate why the pulse was the way it was, which indicated to him a head injury. He kept the man upright and and rose to his feet to secure the rest of the room, able and grudgingly willing to haul one guy out. It would provide information on which HYDRA cell they had been dealing with and what had gone wrong on the operation to lead to this many casualties. That was all very standard protocol.

He turned his head at a soft scraping sound on his nine o'clock. His hand tightened on his Steyr as he slowly turned and settled his back against the wall.

Suddenly his ear piece came to life. "Frag, status report."

What an absolute itch to his ass! The buzz of static to follow sounded unbearably loud in his ear, especially when his hearing had been straining to catch wind of any other sound. Aside from particles falling from the damaged walls to settle on the floor, there was nothing. The clouds of dusts were too intense for him to see clearly any shapes, and he forcibly turned his attention back to the ear piece.

Goddamn technician! They knew better than to inquire, which meant that this had been an order from higher in the military and political food chain. He reached up to press the earpiece deeper into his canal despite the horrid sound of static that abruptly cut off as he shifted his finger to transmit.

"One ally alive but barely, multiple hostiles dead," he reported in a terse voice. "Still sweeping, sir. Shall I continue or be recalled, over?"

There was a small burst of static as he released the transmit button. He figured it was all the interference being in a cement building and in a room he had literally just blown to bits just minutes before. It wasn't like he could expect any more being the last functional team member.

"Continue the sweep," came the reply from the radio technician. "Remove all hostiles above all other objectives, over."

"Copy that," he replied, not bothering to question why he was to kill all the HYDRA agents and sweep the entire building at the risk of the injured team member. The objective freed him from any obligation to the man in question, and so he stepped away to continue his sweep.

He followed the wall and located a mess of overturned chairs and tables that had fallen over in the concussive force of the blast. He had to gingerly pick his way around and sometimes over, but the debris shifted under his boots dangerously. He paused several times for sound which seemed unrelated to his own motions, and that alone forced him to leave his little scramble to follow the wall, instead sending him out on the floor.

It also put him in the middle of the room by the time he had began to skirt the mess, but he followed it knowing that the wall was to his left. By his count, he had already found all the bodies based on the voices that he had counted before rolling his grenade.

Perhaps that was why it came as a bit of a surprise when a huge hulking body tackled him over as he swept passed the last of the chair and table stacked debris. Large arms curled around his own and locked them to his sides as he was taken right off of his feet with a grunt. He landed hard on his side, but he managed to keep a hold of his Steyr despite the heavy weight that landed purposefully on top of him.

They twisted and squirmed against each other, his feet kicking both floor and the legs of his assailant. He received an elbow to his face, nearly dislodging his mask and for certain tearing out some of his bleach blond hair. However, in doing that, it freed one of his arms which he used to punch at the other man's head. It connected, but it was a glancing blow.

The HYDRA agent snarled and looked down at him, and damn, that guy was ugly. The new and now drying blood notwithstanding, the man had a scar down the left side of the face from nose to mouth and a sloping forehead that did nothing to make this bruiser pretty. _Like his face has been beaten with a shovel,_ he thought as they continued to struggle on the ground for the upper hand and a killing blow.

He managed to get his legs wrapped around his opponents hips and twist hard while slamming with his palm on the opposite shoulder to jam on how opposite the motion of the spine it was. He received a punch to the face just above his eye that snapped his head to the side, but it wasn't as hard as it could have been thanks to the brief spasm that locked the man's spine slightly. He dropped his hand to the Steyr and twisted it, but there was no shot except a glancing one. It wasn’t worth the wasted bullets.

Instead he heaved his entire body and tried to roll, but he was back wrapped in a bear hug. He issued a low growl as they stared down at each other, and he set his shoulders so that he could slam his forehead into the HYDRA agent’s nose, once then twice.

Blood spattered across his face and mask, and he twisted his legs to roll them so that he was on top, this time succeeding. With a flip of his arm, the barrel of his Steyr came to rest under the HYDRA agent’s jaw, and the big man froze for a moment.

His finger locked on the trigger, his head turning slightly to the side and his earpiece dangling down his neck. His bleach-blond eyebrows knit as his finger paused from ending this scumbag’s life; there was something… familiar about that face. What was it?

He hissed when a knife blade slammed into his gut, forcing him away even as his Steyr jumped with the sudden force of his finger on the trigger. There was a loud _tat_ and the HYDRA agent yelled even as the knife swung up in a defensive flailing motion to slice the corner of his jaw all the way up the right side of his face - the less scarred side. It caught on the strap of his mask and was torn away with him as he stumbled backwards.

The HYDRA agent was very still on the ground, and he was certain he’d blown the asshole’s face off. He jumped to his feet, his gloved fingers feeling the knife wound, which bled freely. His grinning skull mask hung on his face by a few threads, and he tore it off of his face, breathing in the sharp horrible scent of cement dust. In infiltrated his brain and forced him to shake his head in an attempt to clear it. He instead focused on the fact that his face and neck were already slick with blood. He’d definitely need some sutures.

Still, Frag had a mission to complete and it involved killing every hostile in this place. He stepped forward to examine the blooded HYDRA agent, noting the growing dusty pool of the stuff. The man’s eyes were open, fixed and staring up at him, not quite glassy but almost at that point. He leaned down and reached out to check for a pulse.

He twisted as the metal bar of a table leg swung up at him, but it caught him in the side of the face. He stumbled away, the knife wound opening more and bleeding copiously. His bell had been rung, causing him to sway and almost lose his grip on his Steyr. Instead, he found himself flat on his back as he was tackled and came face to bloody face with the HYDRA agent.

That mean look turned to shock as he blinked his eyes to focus his vision. Then, “...Rumlow?”

He grunted, turning his half burnt and the rest bleeding face to look at the HYDRA agent. “Who?”

“Jesus Christ, you were one of them,” the ugly agent said, gripping his jaw with a hand. “I thought you were dead.”

“You’re going to be in a few seconds,” he growled back, baring his teeth and swinging an arm in a lame punch. It hit the enemy agent’s shoulder and did little to sway the hulking weight off of him. He jerked on his Steyr rifle, which was firmly pinned against the ground.

Blood dripped on his face, mingling with the vast amount coming from his own. The agent leaned down to examine him closely, though just out of range of a headbutt. “Look at you,” the ugly shit breathed at him. “They’ve got you collared like a dog. Did they mind wipe you? I heard they got their hands on the tech. You’re involved in clearing out HYDRA, huh?”

He remained mute and still struggling, but it was clear that this HYDRA asshole wasn’t even talking to him and expecting a response. For some reason, he thought it odd the man was speaking so much in the first place. It didn’t feel right.

“You killed your old team,” the agent finally settled on, throwing the words at him.

“I kill HYDRA agents,” he snarled back.

“You are a HYDRA agent.” The agent looked down at him with no pity, only calculation. “The great Brock Rumlow switched to the position of the very weapon he had once guided.”

He squirmed, but the other man’s grip only tightened. They struggled against each other, and his comm came to life between them with the technicians inquiry as to his status. The big agent pressed an arm across shoulders to pin him and picked up the comm, issuing only a throaty chuckle before ripping it off of his ear and tossing it aside.

“You’re coming with me.”

“Fuck you,” he snarled, making another attempt at a headbutt. It didn’t work.

His eloquent reply was only met with silence before he was punched in the side of the head until unconscious. Why did that name stir the thought worms? They couldn’t move around with the collar on. So why…?

*****


	2. Negative at the Source

*****

“...is the last house call I make for you.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Keep him laying down for a few days. No reading, no television, and not too much moving around. You need to stop hitting other fellows in the head, Jack. You’re notorious for your concussions.”

“Yes sir.”

“And keep those bandages clean. A gut wound is nothing to mess around with.”

“Yes sir.”

He was warm, cuddled up in fuzzy blankets that swaddled his entire body deep enough that only his face poked out at the world beyond his little man-made cocoon. His fingers twitched in the blanket closest to his body, just feeling the thickness of the material and pulling at it so the blanket shifted against his bare thighs. The sensation was pleasant, and if he turned his head, he could feel sunlight hitting the left side of his face.

His head ached something fierce, the right side of his face a dull aching pain but still sharper than the usual agony of burn scars. He was intimately familiar with that discomfort, but this was different but still oddly familiar. Like being sliced up had occurred before, even if he couldn’t quite recall the events to give him that impression.

He shifted on the bed, turning on his side and only then aware of the warm metal ring around his right ankle. He twisted his foot lightly, feeling the metal and the chain that held it. Slowly, he used his other foot to trace a chain as far as he could before realizing that he was bound to a bed frame. His arms were free though, but in order to make any attempt at freedom, he would have to sit up and give away his new state of wakefulness.

Whoever was minding him and had put him in this position took a seat lightly nearby, but he couldn’t tell if it was on a chair or another bed. He risked cracking his eyelids open slightly, but his vision was blurred even without having to peer through his gummy eyelashes. He closed them again and nestled deeper into his cocoon of blankets instead.

Frag - or was it really something else? Rumlow? - played sleep possum with the apparent only other occupant of the room. His head hurt if he thought too much about how much time had passed or even what time it was.

Of course, he wrinkled his forehead when the sun began to shine into his right eyelid, and he frowned and nestled away from the stimulation. It wasn’t even warm, which felt like a disappointment. He was already pleasantly warm and yet something about being under the rays of the sun stirred something inside of him. Hot days on the beach?

“Alright, open your eyes.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

Oddly or perhaps because SHIELD had him so well-trained, he did actually open his eyes and peer blurrily at the ugly stitched up face looming close to him. The agent was holding a flashlight in the other hand, which explained the light without warmth, and he scowled.

“I won’t tell you anything,” he snarled.

“Good, listening to you talk was the last thing I had in mind,” the agent said to him. “Eat.”

Frag actually lifted his head at the prospect of food, regardless of the mush he was fed. He peered at the bowl that was sitting on the night stand, steaming away. He spied chunks of carrot, some peas, barley and some kind of meat floating in the dark liquid. It looked far more appetizing than anything he was normally given to put in his mouth, and he slowly pushed a little of his cocoon of blankets back to draw himself up. He only was able to pull himself as far as the chains connected to his cuffs would allow and the flare of pain on his left side kept him from too much in the way of abrupt motions.

The chain clicked noisily in the otherwise silent room. He went for the bowl all the same, eyeing the HYDRA agent suspiciously. The big man was bruised, battered and littered with injuries, yet the agent sat reading a half folded paper, a pencil in hand and ignoring him. Like his silence was the best gift to mankind.

He pulled the bowl over to him, avoiding pitching from the waves of dysphoria when he moved any part of his body too quickly. That alone forced him to eat slowly, sipping and savouring the soup which was so rich in taste it gave him a headache. He was allowed salt in his meals and that was a treat. Maybe it was just given to him for the iodine and nothing more.

He was ignored. Instead, the silence of the room was broken only by the scratch of a pencil occasionally. He took furtive glances only, but his curiosity began to grow when he had finished his meal and still hadn’t earned a glance back. He was far too used to people watching him like he might suddenly explode at any given moment that he found this silent treatment unnerving.

Instead there was just more pencil scratching.

“Aren’t you going to interrogate me?”

“No,” came the simple reply.

“I need to use the bathroom,” he tried instead.

“No you don’t.” The agent didn’t even look up at him.

Frag huffed and set the bowl back on the nightstand before nestling back down into the blankets, pulling them up to his chin. “I have to take a leak.”

The HYDRA agent finally looked at him over the edge of the paper. “No, you don’t. Doc emptied your bladder before he left.”

Oh.

He stared up at the ceiling, wracking his aching brain and finally just closing his eyes. He could easily recall bits and pieces of the assault on the cement factory, the explosion that had taken out most of the terrorist insurgence group and then getting his face beaten in by this asshole. He had been told a name - his name - but it oddly made him twitch if he tried to apply it to himself.

Then there was that little worm digging into his thoughts. Was he a HYDRA agent? He worked for SHIELD, which had always felt accurate when he considered it, yet if he focused too hard on that subject, a dark undercurrent threatened his usually peaceful thoughts. People hated him; a lot of people hated him to the point of threatening violence upon him for just walking with his assigned team. He was always first into the HYDRA hovels, always sniffing out the little secret places their agents might hide, always expendable.

His head hurt. His scalp itched too, and he raised a hand to scratch at it, wincing at the pull to his side where he had been stabbed. It was covered in bandages, the closest thing to clothing he had been provided. He ran his fingers through his hair to distract himself.

“You are the worst blond I’ve seen,” the HYDRA agent finally rumbled at him.

“They bleach it twice a month,” was all he said. It wasn’t his choice to have the sting of bleach against his scalp. It was orders, and if he didn’t follow orders, he was confined to that little room.

“You can grow it black again.”

He looked over at the HYDRA agent and frowned in thought. None of this was making sense in his cluttered bruised brain. “Can I dye it black?”

“I guess.”

“Why am I here?”

The agent looked at him again, eyes flicking him over carefully before shrugging. “SHIELD killed my team, so I’m taking their pet.”

“There’s trackers…”

“I know. I already dug them out.”

That would explain why his neck and shoulder hurt. He shifted on the bed and finally rolled onto his side to face the agent. His curiosity was growing, especially since he noted that his collar was gone.

“You said I killed my team,” he murmured. “Then you just said SHIELD killed your team.”

“Yes, I did.” The agent rose slowly to that rather impressive height and looked down at him. The ugly bastard looked sore as hell but wasn’t about to mention it, least of all to him. “Get some sleep. You’ve got a concussion, and it’s about the fifth in your lifetime.”

“How many have you given me?” He was playing on a hunch, little more.

The HYDRA agent walked out of the room with a hitching step, and he thought that he wouldn’t get an answer at all. That wasn’t unusual. He closed his eyes and nestled his sutured swollen face into the blankets carefully and closed his eyes. A day off for him to actually sleep was unheard of, and he was a novel enough experience with or without injury that he was going to savour it.

He slept deeply.

The next week passed similarly to the first day. He woke, was fed something easy on his stomach, helped up to use the bathroom for his business, went back to bed and slept. His healing injuries itched, which forced him to sleep more to avoid scratching at them. Always his hands were free but his legs were bound, even for the brief trips to the bathroom.

He managed to get out of the HYDRA agent the name Rollins and little else. The big man was also healing and losing some of that stiffness, but their conversations were often short and more likely cut off with Rollins simply rising and walking out of the room he was staying in. However, every morning, he was plied with one or two questions, answers he didn’t know.

His dreams were disjointed though, images and scenes that made no sense because of how they overlapped one another. Faces bled together, words were muffled and the scenes were so chaotic that it left him in cold sweats. Each night, the worms that pushed through his thoughts during the day multiplied, and even though his concussion was healing, his confusion was mounting. His headaches were also more frequent, leaving him for hours with his head under a pillow to filter out light and sound.

Frag left the cuffs on his ankles, even if he knew that he could pick them.They were loose enough where he could sleep in almost any position he liked, but he could not climb out of bed. Somehow the confining sensation reduced the urges to simply walk off back to SHIELD. He could, for the moment, pretend he was prisoner and held completely against his will.

Halfway through the second week, Rollins pulled the pillow off of his head while he still slept and nudged him awake. “Up, we’re leaving.”

He opened his eyes and flicked his gaze around the room. It was the same as always except for the fact that clothing had been set out for him on the chair that the HYDRA agent normally occupied. He shifted, rising slowly and found Rollins down at the foot of the bed unhitching his ankles, letting him go free momentarily. The ugly asshole watched him closely, clearly and visibly armed with a knife.

“Don’t I get a pair of boxers,” he asked as he picked through the clothing and noted what was missing.

“You get what’s there. Put it on,” Rollins replied gruffly.

“At least SHIELD gave me underwear,” he grumbled, glancing at the HYDRA agent.

“That’s why I’m HYDRA; underwear is denied. Now get that scarred ass into those clothes.” Was that supposed to be a joke? Rollins didn’t seem like the kind of man to make them so far.

He climbed into the clothing slowly, a pair of grey sweat pants, a black t-shirt and a black hoodie. He was handed a part of worn out mostly white sneakers that looked like they had been pulled out of a dumpster, even if they smelled clean. He frowned at them, picking at the laces for a little while without caring that he was delaying them. They were ugly, he decided. Ugly and probably uncomfortable, and the laces were stiff from whatever it was that stained them and perhaps long heavy use. Probably dumpster diving.

Frag scratched at the insole, finding that it lifted and apparently had been super-glued multiple times. The glue was well worn, crusted with dirt and bits of old dried out grass. It looked like bits of paper corners were mixed with the old glue.

Surprisingly, Rollins didn’t hurry him into the shoes, just left him to gather some items from the bathroom. It was only when the big man was packed up - apparently - that the agent came to stand staring at him as he continued to fiddle with the sneakers.

“Those go on your feet,” Rollins finally said.

“Where did you get this stuff?” He looked up from examining a stain on the sole of the shoe to find the HYDRA agent watching him carefully, expression flat and with a hint of dismay.

“A dumpster.”

What an itch to his ass this man was. He frowned, his scarring and scabbing pulling as his eyebrows drew together, and he knew that his jaw set mulishly. “Where?”

“Put on your shoes and I’ll tell you in the car,” Rollins said simply.

Frag considered refusing, but then he imagined being put in a small room, left alone for days with only meals coming in a slot and no mission. He put on the vile sneakers and found that they fit just fine, and they were, in fact, comfortable to walk in.

He rose and followed Rollins through the house, a place beyond his room that he had heard the other man moving around in but only now seeing for the first time. It was dated, he knew that much. The paint was the kind of colours little old ladies decided on, porcelain plates mounted on walls and sitting on quaint side tables with coasters for drinks. The coasters were supposed to have pictures in them, but they were empty. The couches were flower print and covered in plastic, not that anything that gawdy deserved to be preserved for the long-term.

He craned his neck to peer down a hallway, sighting multiple doors and what probably ended in a kitchen. He almost took a step to wander down there but Rollins grunted at him, gesturing for them to leave by the door which the HYDRA agent was standing by.

He followed but lingered in the doorway, standing under the shadow of Rollins gaze and peering back inside. This was the first house he could remember living in for any length of time, and his eyes flicked around to take in the disgustingly dated details anyway.

Frag found himself surprised when Rollins set an arm across his shoulders and gently directed him out of the house, shutting the door and locking it before tossing the keys into the nearby rose bushes. He looked up at the HYDRA agent, but Rollins was glancing around as if looking for nosy neighbours.

Arm still around his shoulders, he was directed to a silver Ford Focus and settled into the passenger’s seat. He could break for it, rush off the street while Rollins finished loading the car with the last few items from the bathroom, but he instead found himself looking out the windscreen at the blue sky and clouds, the city landscape that peeked over the roof of the house. His compliance was survival, he told himself.

Rollins seemed the asshole type to mow him down with a car anyway.

As soon as Rollins was in the car and the engine engaged, he turned to face the agent. “So?”

“So yourself,” he was told as they backed out of the driveway.

He narrowed his eyes and reached out to jab the larger man in the ribs, but his finger was swatted away. That’s when he snapped out with his other hand to jab, his feint clearly working as Rollins hissed in aggravation. That was the problem with being the driver, he thought. There was always time to attack a driver who couldn’t remove eyes from the road or risk disaster. Plus, most accidents happened a few blocks from one’s residence due to complacency.

“Where did you get the stuff I’m wearing?” He had done what he was ordered to after all.

“Second-hand shop,” came the reply.

Somehow, he knew that Rollins was lying. He growled and turned away, waiting until a stop light to pry open the lock and the promptly opened the car door. He was seized around the middle as he was getting out and wrenched back into the car.

“Close the damn door. Act like a normal human being for once,” Rollins snapped at him.

“Fuck you,” he snarled and struggled to get out of his seat. “At least SHIELD was honest about my missions.”

Despite the clear anger, Rollins barked a harsh laugh and punched him in his still healing knife wound. He hissed and jerked, but the big man had reached beyond him and forced the door closed before driving into the intersection. He noted the man drove fast enough where jumping out was not an option without bodily harm.

“You never once believed someone was entirely honest,” Rollins hit him with. “They scrambled your head, that’s what SHIELD did and then they used what came out the other side to hunt down those unfortunate enough to get on SHIELD’s radar. HYDRA hunting HYDRA… they must have had a good laugh over that.”

It was the most that Rollins had spoke in the last week and a half. His head throbbed with an ache, and he closed his eyes and counted to ten. Suddenly he was tired, and he hadn’t done anything but get dressed and walk to a damn car. He wanted to go for a run, he decided.

“Where did you get this stuff?”

“It’s yours,” Rollins finally amended. “You dumped it at my place before the whole world went tits up.”

Frag picked at his t-shirt but found his gaze once again attracted to the sneakers. He lifted his feet and put them on the dash, examining them from afar and Rollins didn’t tell him to be polite. “Ugly as shit sneakers.”

“Your favourite.”

He frowned as he tapped the toes together. “Did I find them in a dumpster?”

“No, but god knows you jumped in one enough in them,” Rollins said while settling more easily into driving.

“Why?”

“Because you’re an idiot.” There was a pause as Rollins switched lanes and then glanced over at him. “It’s because you were stashing evidence or information.”

“Huh?” He tried to seem like he could follow along, but this sounded like the dumbest reason to go jumping into a dumpster. Anyone could find it!

Rollins actually gave him a patient look. “HYDRA manufactured specific garbage bags integrated with a polymer that lit up in ultraviolet light. You’d put whatever needed handing off into one and off to the sorting facility it would go. Workers would sort it out; it be loaded on a particular truck and off to a HYDRA intelligence bank it would go.” There was a shrug. “You couldn’t tell the difference in the bags from the naked eye.”

He settled back into his seat, looking out the window. Millions of tons of garbage and HYDRA was using it to pass information. That was so fucking devious he almost smiled. Better than the post office and just as dirty, he thought.

He watched Rollins drive for awhile, and it was clear that they were driving in some rush hour traffic. They were never close to the speed limit, but his HYDRA captor didn’t seem to mind at all. It took them an hour to actually catch the 465 and by then, he had enough signs to know that they were leaving Washington D.C. for some other place. It was only when they hit the 270 that he knew they were going North and glanced at Rollins as if the side of the man’s stitched up face would provide him the answers on where they were going.

While he didn’t request food, he was hungry by the time that Rollins pulled off to grab an early lunch. He sat up, only to be handed a pillow. “Stay here, pretend to be asleep.”

“Why?”

“Your face invites attention,” Rollins remarked and left him there.

Irked, he glared at the HYDRA agent and made a show of getting out of the car once Rollins was inside. He stretched and breathed in the relatively fresh air, though he had a sense of propriety and pulled the hood of his sweater up over his head to hide most of his scarring.

He could walk, he knew. Rollins couldn’t possibly chase him fast enough to drag him back if he wanted to just flip the man off and slip away. He knew how to hide. He also knew that Rollins was very much aware that he could slip off and didn’t for once glance back to where the car was to check if he was even still there.

Like Rollins didn’t care if he stayed or went. Or like Rollins knew he wouldn’t go back to SHIELD. Or like he was too well trained by SHIELD to stay where he was ordered. Or like Rollins suspected he had some deep ingrained want to be there with the man. It could have been nothing or everything.

He flexed his neck, but the weight of his collar wasn’t a comfort to him anymore. He had no idea what had happened to it, but Rollins had never mentioned its existence again, and he had not decided it was important to waste a question on. So he stayed like some kind of hideous human guard dog by the car, eventually giving over to doing some push-ups on the grass, ignoring the looks he was thrown to people passing by. He didn’t care what they thought, and he realized with jarring clarity that he never had. It was like an old piece of himself he had never realized was missing came back.

Rollins was walking out some ten minutes later, eyeing him at his work and then settled at a cement picnic table. “Come and eat, Ru--”

Frag rose at the slip, wandering over more out of curiosity on what he was going to be provided. He seated himself and peered at the bowl which Rollins slid to him, picking up the plastic spoon and stirring around the thick chili. It was spicier than the soup he was given, but it filled his belly. 

Rollins ate a sandwich, and he manage to steal a wayward tomato from the bottom. There was a twitch from the corner of the agent’s mouth, as close to a potentially fond look as he had ever seen.

“Where are we going?”

“North,” Rollins said simply.

“How far?”

“As far as I feel is necessary. Eat your chili.”

To him it wasn’t amazing how he responded to orders as he picked up the spoon without a fuss and returned to eating the stuff. “Canada far?”

Rollins was looking elsewhere, using a napkin to wipe off some mayonnaise from fingers and mouth. “They’d never let our two faces in. The Canadians might be nice, but even they will smell trouble with us. Plus, you don’t have a fake passport matching your current appearance.”

“So where?”

“Pennsylvania. Now back in the car,” the HYDRA agent said while rising to gather up their empty wrappings.

Frag huffed. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“Sorry, panty-less wonder, you get to rough it and piss in the bush off the highway,” Rollins was off to dump their trash, and it was only then he noticed that the agent kept the paper bag. He eyed it suspiciously. “You don’t think I’d forget to steal toilet paper, did you?”

It was better than napkins.

*****

Frag had the shits from the chili. Rollins didn’t complain once about his sudden jumpy urgency to rush off into the ditch, even coming so far as to bring him toilet paper when he headed out too fast to remember taking some. It was a long day with frequent pit stops.

“I liked the house better. You didn’t poison me there,” he called at one point from behind a tree.

“So your stomach is a bit more sensitive then I remembered,” Rollins called back, taking the time to have a piss on a different tree. “Reminds me of _him_.”

“My asshole is seriously on fire right now.”

Rollin snorted a sound of amusement. “Better food than the alternative.”

“You’re seriously the biggest jerk-off,” Frag grumped even as he tugged up his sweatpants and made for the car again. He had to walk a bit gingerly, and he swung around to punch Rollins in the chest for swatting his ass as he climbed out of the ditch. “I hate you.”

“Good, you’re so much prettier when you dislike someone,” Rollins remarked and got back into the driver’s seat. “And you tend to be quieter while you fume.”

He took a nap instead, delaying for the time being any new urgent calls to scuttle out of the car.

They ended up stopping for the night in Emmitsburg, at first hitting up the local grocer and then Rollins getting them a room at the homely Sleep Inn and Suites. They ate soup and relatively plain and easy sandwiches for dinner before he began to badger at Rollins to let him do some exercise. It didn’t take that much effort and for some reason, Rollins was still convinced he wouldn’t just run off.

They went for a jog together, injuries be damned. It felt good, cleared his mind of all the little thoughts that had been cluttering up his head and worked out some of that pent up energy he had been feeling. He could tell that Rollins was feeling better about the day as well and even went for a shower to leave him to his own devices.

Instead of using a lamp electrical wire as a garrotte, he carefully did some sit-ups and ended the evening with some push-ups. There was no place for the common pull up, but he made do with what he had. His knife wound ached the entire time; he ignored it.

He showered while Rollins watched some television and tapped away on a burner phone. He was not allowed close to the phone, he noted quickly.

There was only one queen size bed, which seemed hazardous given their beat up appearances. If it bothered Rollins, the man didn’t show it, especially not when clipping one of his wrists to one bedpost and a leg to the footboard. If he was creative and careful, he could still spin around in bed like a crocodile until the chains locked up.

Rollins slept on the opposite side of the bed with a back to him and while he could stretch and elbow or kick, it wouldn’t be enough damage to kill. There was no point then.

The next day passed much the same, minus the unsettling of his guts and constant need to shit himself. Rollins seemed to have learned from the chili and instead invested in making them something to eat and taking it with them. It was like a right old family roadtrip, minus the red meat, blaring tunes and actually liking one another or being related.

For his part, he spent hours looking out the window or nodding off. When he offered to take a turn driving, Rollins smirked and handed him a crossword puzzle to entertain himself with. He wedged his feet bare feet on the dash and tapped the pencil on his leg as he stared at the clues.

He didn’t know the answer to any of them.

Frag moved to put the puzzle away back in Rollins’ pack, but the agent waved him away. “Keep trying.”

“Why? I don’t know this stuff.”

“Keep trying,” Rollins ordered with a cutting coldness. “One clue and then you can put it away.”

He grunted and went back to staring at the clues then at the blank puzzle and glanced down at the presented solved puzzle from the previous day. The next several miles were in silence, the pencil tapping against his thigh, but he noticed from his peripheral vision that Rollins kept glancing at him as if waiting for some miracle to happen. If he was paying attention as much as he knew he was, he would say those glances became a little more desperate and heading quickly towards anger.

He stared at the clues, reading them over before he suddenly tilted his head as one of those little bubbles popped. It wasn’t the usual dried up go-fuck-your-wayward-thinking kind of popping either, and he suddenly moved his hand over to the puzzle and filled in the answer to the clue.

Beside him, Rollins visibly relaxed.

Frag managed to slowly fill in four more words over an hour before he folded up the paper and put it away. He had a headache and his vision was blurring, so he put his seat back and closed his eyes for a few hours. He dozed with an easiness that should have startled him.

He woke to the soft sound of Rollins’s voice. The man was clearly on the phone.

“I know.”

“The team is dead; he’s all I have of STRIKE, so we’re doing this.”

“I understand, but get it ready anyway.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there in about an hour.”

He shifted, rolling to his other side and opening his eyes. He found Rollins glancing down at him, phone up to the ear. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Bye.” And so the call was disconnected.

“Talking on your cellphone while driving is illegal, you know,” he pointed out.

“Murdering someone and burying their body parts in multiple sites is illegal too,” Rollins replied.

He couldn’t completely argue with that, though he wondered why this HYDRA agent so often took extremes to make a point to him. This wasn’t the first, nor the first relatively simple subject it had occurred about. It was almost as if Rollins was baiting him, but he couldn’t fathom what response was the right one.

Instead of thinking about it, he simply challenged the statement. “One will land you with a fine and the other will land you with life in prison.”

“Depends on your lawyer,” Rollins muttered.

“Depends on the evidence, you mean,” he said and rolled onto his back. He ignored the approving look he was thrown.

They lapsed into another one of their usual silences, and the miles were once again eaten up until they were pulling off the 81 into beautiful, no-one-cares Scranton, Pennsylvania. He actually sat up to peer out the window more diligently, finding this place vaguely familiar, which wasn’t unusual. He remembered places far more than he remembered people, but then again, a lot of places looked very similar to each other beyond the usual national monuments. The place was medium sized, a good home-grown town with a nice university, the usual kind of people who liked their guns a bit too much and just enough kids wandering around to make it look homely.

They drove passed a mall and turned down an underused street where the buildings were all primarily made of red brick and had probably been standing for over sixty years. He leaned back in the seat and watched, finding something far more interesting about this than he had about everywhere that they had driven to.

Rollins pulled up to a building with the big white block letters _Trolley Museum_. There were train tracks that ran around the building and old vintage-looking trolleys in good condition but clearly old if they needed to be part of a museum. There were three old brick buildings associated, and they parked in a visitor spot, and he was slower to emerge than Rollins, who immediately went to retrieve a duffle bag from the trunk.

“Come on,” Rollins told him when he dallied to look around.

“I know this place,” he remarked as he tilted his head.

The HYDRA agent said nothing and instead walked away, and like a well-trained lost SHIELD puppy, he followed while still looking around. It looked like the place was closed given they were the only car in the small lot and no one seemed to be on the tracks and no sounds of people could be heard.

Inside the main building they went, and he found himself inundated with the smell of freshly lacquered wood, well maintained shelves on the walls and the middle of the room filled with the biggest trolley model set-up. The place was maintained by hobbiest he supposed, and he jumped from peering at the little fake trees and tracks when Rollins rang the bell for service. Except the asshole didn’t do it once but three times: one long, two short and in rapid succession.

_Code._

Frag was drawn over as an old bald man shuffled from the back wiping model paint from brushes. The guy looked to be nearly double their age, peering at them both over thick spectacles and humming as if trying to decide if they were the kind of people who were actually here for a tour or would be trouble. He received a fair share of silent judging glances before the old man - Rudolph by the name tag - bobbed his head like an old bird about to collapse.

“Good day, gentlemen. Are you looking for a tour?”

“We’re looking to head to Bigler Street on the number thirty-seven,” Rollins said simply.

“Very good, you know the way,” Rudolph replied before giving him a sharp look. “He’s expecting you.”

He looked to Rollins and found both men staring at him, which earned a sneer from him. He certainly didn’t know the way to Bigler Street nor where the apparent trolley they were going to catch was. He set his hands on his hips defiantly, earning an exasperated glare from Rollins.

“Sometimes I think I like you better this way,” the HYDRA agent remarked.

“He’s more useful the way he was,” Rudolph said like some kind old man. “This shell is unfortunate.” Then the old bastard was shuffling off to the back room again.

Frag glared until the old bastard was gone and Rollins was walking around the counter, forcing him to follow or be left to play with the giant trolley play set. They passed Rudolph’s work station where the guy was painting highlights on a train model that had clearly been assembled over time in that very spot. There was at least no sign by his measure that the geezer lived here.

Out a door at the back, they had to cross a few sets of tracks towards another brick building. Up a set of cement stairs and down along the building, Rollins ignored the obvious doors and approached an old green trolley that had signs of maintenance. There were boxes of old parts with labels, tools and even an old used rag with signs of oil on it set out on the cement pad like the maintenance crew had just stepped out for lunch.

He followed Rollins from the cement pad into the interior of the trolley itself, shuffling between the seats to the central aisle. The back section had panels removed and the interior workings showing plainly, but the HYDRA agent counted the seats to the fourth back and gestured at him to sit down.

He eyed Rollins and then the seat. “You first.”

“Sit by the window then,” Rollins replied, voice edged with challenge.

Slowly, he shifted and then moved to sit in the second seat, examining the area around his head for signs of a trap of some kind. However, his HYDRA counterpart settled in the seat he refused to take, duffle bag on lap and then reached under the seat and flicked a switch. It turned on a light above their heads, and he glanced around and back for suspiciousness.

Instead, the floor beneath their feet opened up after Rollins had flicked the switch in a certain timed sequence, and he tensed as their seats sank into the floor and then what had to be the end of the trolley and the ground, yet the tight smooth walls gave no indication to their progress. It was so tight a fit he couldn’t even shift in his seat much as his legs would bump the wall in front of them and Rollins always glared when he got a bit squirrelly.

So, Frag sat feeling like he had entered into some low-grade spy movie, the details of which were foggy at best. A part of him wrestled with the itch that this all came with the sensation of familiarity, and he was beginning to find that annoying with its increasing frequency.

Suddenly they came to rest at the bottom of the shaft. A door that he hadn’t known even existed slid to the side to expose a large open room full of work benches and cupboards. It would have seemed like some kind of underground parts dispensary if not for the medical equipment to the right of their position and the meanest looking dentist chair straight ahead.

Rollins was first out, and he followed the agent’s lead warily, his eyes flicking around the room and his hands itching for a weapon to cover their backs with. There was a single occupant in the large room, again balding and a bit haggard looking, but the caucasian man looked well tended and well dressed. He noted the shadow of stubble and a pair of glasses were pushed up a straight narrow nose as they were regarded.

He surmised they were both HYDRA with the way that Rollins dropped the duffle bag and clasped hands with the other man, though both cast looks over at him. “He’s in better condition than you led me to believe.”

“Yeah well, I let him keep his pretty face,” Rollins replied roughly. “Fix him.”

“Easier said than done,” the other agent replied before gesturing at him to take a seat in the demonic dentist chair.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and a part of him did not want to venture into the clutches of that black monster. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked around the room as if he hadn’t seen the pointed gesture of guidance. This was clearly some kind of HYDRA hide-away, one that had never apparently hit on the radar of his SHIELD maps. He’d have to remember it, he decided.

“Sit in the chair,” Rollins finally barked at him. “He’s going to give you a look over.”

“No,” he replied coldly. No good came from that.

“Do I need to wrestle him in it?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” the balded technician said. “Did you bring his file? I’ll need to read it over to get a better sense of what was given to him.”

Rollins glared at him before bending to root around in the duffle bag before producing a manila folder he never even knew existed. It was handed off and the technician moved off to a nearby metal medical examination table to flip through it.

Instead, Frag found Rollins walking over to him to stand nearby. He eyed the HYDRA agent balefully, earning a smirk from his captor. “We’re trying to help you.”

“What makes you think I want help,” he replied with a curl of his lip.

“Because the excellent agent I knew would rather die choked on his own socks then play SHIELD’s new game like this. They took something from you, something vital, and I intend that you have it back,” Rollins growled at him. “After that, you want to live like that, wander back to SHIELD and their _truth_.”

He leveled Rollins with a stare. “I murdered your STRIKE team. They were in that cement factory with you. I used to be part of that team.”

“You were.” It actually didn’t surprise him that the man before him refused to deny it. “You used to lead them, lead _us_. You rode our asses on every training session, molded us to the best STRIKE team there was.”

“Order through pain,” he heard himself say.

Rollins gave him the first real approving tight smile, clapping him on the shoulder carefully and then pulling him in. He was dragged along towards the medical table where papers of his file were spread out into two small neat piles. He found himself looking beyond Rollins to the silent, still but intimidating presence of the chair.

They waited together, Rollins heavy arm across his shoulders lazily, but there was an air of palpable expectation and hunger about the HYDRA agent keeping him close. He had no particular expectations that this was going anywhere beneficial to him so kept his silence and instead examined his dirty fingernails.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, the technician turned to regard them looming close. The man - what the hell was his name anyway? - regarded him like he was a very interesting puzzle, rubbing stubbled cheeks annoyingly.

“How long has it been since you removed the collar?”

“Nine days,” Rollins replied easily. “I sent it to you immediately. You received it, right?”

“Any muscle tremors? Insomnia? Abnormal sweating? Depression?”

“No, no, no, and maybe. He’s been sleeping an awful lot.” Rollins shrugged. “However, he has a concussion.”

Why did he feel like he was being examined when those questions could easily be aimed at him? He felt his annoyance mount. He was right here and could examine his own state better than either of these two.

“Vomiting?”

“No, but he had the shits pretty well a day and a half ago,” Rollins replied, plainly enjoying his discomfort.

“That’s not surprising if you gave him anything rich. He’s been on bland diet for months,” the technician replied and stepped closer to use a flashlight to check his pupil response. He glared in reply. “I can theorize what they did to him.”

Rollins didn’t seem interested in theories. “Can it be corrected?”

“That depends on him. Have you ever heard of the Centipede Initiative?” Both of them must have looked as stumped as the other. “It was an underground project that was uncovered by SHIELD; it used certain alien and biochemical agents to try to reproduce a better super-soldier program. It was horribly unstable for the most part.”

“Spit out the real reason I can’t remember,” Frag barked impatiently.

“The collar is layered with some of the materials used in Centipede. It’s a good and stable conductor of certain properties.” The technician looked at him curiously. “Everyone wants a stable, battle-hardened, effective soldier. Everyone.”

Rollins made an impatient noise. This was clearly more of a background lesson than the HYDRA agent had been looking to receive on a private house call. “I want answers, Ed.”

Ah, that was the technician’s name, was it?

“SHIELD had this man heavily doped up on pain medication for months because of the severity of his injuries. They had him in a cocktailed opiate drug coma for about three months, leaving them plenty of time to figure out his identity. I’m theorizing they woke him up slowly for interrogation purposes, only to discover he had traumatic retrograde amnesia. It normally resolves with time as the bruising to the brain heals, but SHIELD was out hunting HYDRA at that time,” Ed said softly, watching his face the entire time. “They doped him on drugs known to create memory loss, but in this case, they were prolonging the effects he already had. They had their own personal amnesic HYDRA soldier who they had to suspect was high-ranked enough to have some clout.”

Frag scowled, but he clearly remembered the medication he swallowed daily and then the application of the collar. He would be able to think far more clearly with it on than without. It reduced the clutter of confusion in his brain.

“How do we reverse it?”

“No, I swallowed pills three times a day and wore that collar for upwards to twelve hours. What the hell were they pumping into me?” He surely wasn’t as angry as he should have been.

“SHIELD worked with pharmaceutical companies to produce a stimulant for increased focus on field agents, reducing battle fatigue and paranoia on long-term stressful missions. It was a modification to caffeine actually. However, if I’m reading this correctly, the collar was lorazepam mixed with stabilizing chemicals from Centipede. You received clarity from the stimulant and none of the drawbacks from the lorazepam except for continued memory loss.”

He jerked out from under Rollins’ arm and stood nose-to-nose with the technician. “I was first in on every mission. I sniffed out HYDRA holes better than any other agent.”

“Like I said, every benefit of the stimulant without the drawbacks of the lorazepam. I surmise you were a lesser version of the Winter Soldier who had skills but no memory of them. You probably lead your life on hunches and instinct.” Ed, the technician, still took a subtle step back from him.

“They didn’t wipe him,” Rollins asked quietly.

“Not as far as I can tell. His amnesia was from having ten floors of building fall on him and being soaked with jet fuel. He’s lucky to be alive.” Ed offered a tentative smile.

“So why did he refuse to sit in it?”

“You’d have to ask him that, not me.”

Both sets of eyes fell on him expectantly, and he glanced towards the padded seat, arms with restraints and the odd swinging head piece. He didn’t want to go in there, he thought. It wasn’t for any reason that he could explain, but the animal side of his brain rebelled against willingly going near it. _Nightmare waker._

“Well,” Rollins prompted him.

Frag looked at the HYDRA agent and saw absolutely no yielding on the matter. “I just… don’t like it. It gives me the creeps.”

Ed and Rollins exchanged a look, neither of them seemed to be sympathetic in the face of his clarification. He rubbed the back of his neck with a hand while Ed shrugged and gathered up his file to push back into the manila folder again.

An hour later, it was beneficial that he had been taken to an underground facility. By the time Rollins had managed to physically drag and wrestle him into the satanic tooth pulling chair, he was snarling and screaming like a wounded pig. It took a team effort of Rollins and Ed to clamp the restraints on his arms and even then, he thrashed and struggled for another ten minutes before he tired and breathed in panicked huffs through his nose. His eyes were wide, but nothing in particular spiked or eased his anxiety.

It wasn’t until Ed pulled his old collar out of a briefcase and slipped it around his neck that he settled down. The drugs were no longer as potent nor as stable, but the antianxiety traits still slowly seeped into his system and left him softly whining in the chair, his fingers clamped on the arms until his nails threatened to break.

Rollins looked over at Ed expectantly, clearly displeased with the reappearance of his collar but willing to tolerate it for now.

Ed pushed up spectacles and peered at him, examining his hands and lifting his shirt to peer underneath. The technician looked at the other HYDRA agent and shrugged. “My guess…?”

“It better be an educated one,” Rollins growled.

“They tortured him in a chair similar to this one. Probably early on, so he developed an instinctive aversion to it, not like our asset,” the HYDRA technician said, watching him as he slowly sagged in the chair.

Rollins was also watching, though the agent’s face was carefully blank. “Rumlow never succumbed to torture before. He didn’t tell them anything.”

“Unless the torture wasn’t to produce information,” Ed replied simply.

“Explain.”

Frag bowed his head a little, closing his eyes and feeling the slow clutter of fear disappear under the clouds of medication slipping to ever higher levels in his bloodstream. His wild thoughts calmed and settled as the muscles along his shoulders began to bleed off tension.

“You want an unpredictable confused dog to accept the collar, you make everything before its coming unbearable and then everything after it pleasant,” Ed said simply. “Eventually, the collar is a sign of relief and that dog will come to you for it to be cinched around its neck.”

Rollins looked at where he was sagged in the chair and grunted before freeing him from the restraints. He pushed himself out of the chair and issued a cough when the collar was roughly wrenched from his neck and slammed into the HYDRA technician’s chest. “It’s my dog now, and I don’t put leashes or collars on them. They heel because I tell them to.”

Ed examined the collar and then Rollins, shrugging. “Give him time. His memory could come back, or it might not.”

He shook his head to rid himself of the new cobwebs, his bleach blond eyebrows drawing together when they persisted. He was used to clarity after all, and he simply felt as if he experienced a certain sense of cotton-mouth and a sort of odd drunkenness.

Rollins gripped him by the back of his hood to keep him from sagging towards the ground. “He’s too much of a stubborn dickbag to forget everything forever.”

“What’s your plan?”

He looked up at Rollins, breathing a heavy sigh. He knew this man better than he realized. “...Jack?”

“I’m going to turn him loose on SHIELD,” Rollins said with great relish. “Turnabout is fair play.”

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tra-la-la, this can't end poorly for anyone, right? Right? Next chapter tomorrow I hope, but I might have to delay it to Saturday depending on New Years celebrations.
> 
> Lorazepam is more commonly known by its trade name: Ativan.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my work, and I appreciate any comments and kudos!


	3. This isn't personal

*****

He stared up at the cracked ceiling paint, curls of blue smoke obscuring some of the water stains. He wasn’t exactly paying attention to where he was looking nor was he actually actively smoking the cigarette that was settled at the left side of his lips, though he still somewhat tasted the vile tang of the tar and arsenic along with the pleasant tingle of nicotine. The association mattered, not the activity itself.

Water droplets spattered on his cheeks here and there, but most of the warm liquid was against his scalp and draining noisily into the sink his head happened to be suspended over. Thick fingers worked through his hair, longer now than when he had been with SHIELD. Dark inky black dye swirled around the dirty curves of the sink and slipped off down the drain, taking with it all memory that he had ever been a blond with it.

Rollins hummed a low note, not quite a tune but some attempt all the same. The hulking HYDRA agent took the utmost care in removing the last of the dye from his hair, scrubbing gloved fingers until finally shutting the water off and looking down into his scarred face.

His dark eyes shifted from staring at the ceiling to the flat face peering down at him, and their gazes met. He shifted his lips, the half-butt dipping to one side before he pursed his lips and took a quick drag and then relaxed them. Wordlessly, the butt was taken from him and set in Rollins’ lips instead. He still allowed curls of smoke to sneak out from his parted lips before his head was covered with a towel and rubbed vigorously. He lifted a hand as if to protest but caught Jack’s forearm instead and just held on lightly while his hair was dried off.

It had been three months. They had a calendar and each day was marked off with a thick red sharpie like some kind of triumph.

His name was Brock Rumlow. He had been commander of the STRIKE forces of SHIELD back in the day and a high-ranking operative for HYDRA. He had no family except two long ago orphaned piranhas probably flushed down the toilet by now. His team for both SHIELD and HYDRA was dead except for Rollins. His second in command now diligently put up with his douchebaggery as he came back into his own little-by-little.

Somedays he could only tolerate being called Frag. Somedays he lay with his head under a pillow until Rollins physically dragged him out and forced him to lift weights or jog somewhere. Somedays he swaggered like he had never lost months of his life or wasn’t visibly scarred.

Today was putting a lid on one of his better days. Instead of asking or pestering or grouching about changing his ridiculous two-toned hair, he had simply stolen money right out of Rollins’ wallet, wandered to the corner store and paid an exorbitant amount for a box of black hair dye. Rollins thoroughly enjoyed it when he just cared nothing for anyone else’s opinion and went about doing things his own way rather than waiting for Jack to get it or do it for him. And instead of asking, he had thrown the box at Rollins’ chest and demanded to have his hair dyed.

And so here they were, the grimy sink with a distinct black tinge to it as he sat up and had the towel abandoned on his head. He reached up and rubbed the back where it was wettest and ignored the way that they had ruined the white hotel towel with black dye. Neither of them, quite frankly, cared.

Rumlow stood from the seat they had brought in and reached out to steal the burning nub of cigarette from Rollins’s lips and jammed it back between his. He took the last little drag and then butted it out into the still wet sink before tossing the filter into the toilet and walked out. He still rubbed at his now completely black hair and tilted his head at the muffled sounds of a prostitute in the next suite over earning her coin.

He turned his head as Rollins loomed up behind him. “Nothing?”

“No,” he replied simply. “Just hazy nonsense and the scent of burning flesh. Maybe some burning hair too.”

Sometimes there were associations that they had to explore, little scenarios that set off a memory for him. This time it had been passing through a haze of second-hand smoke on his way to the car, and he had decided that maybe, just maybe smoking an actual cigarette would trigger a new memory. Apparently he had never smoked more than a day in his life, but Rollins so often humoured him, looking silently hungry for something new to return.

Jack was waiting for something very specific. The bits and pieces he had were not what the big man was hoping for. So Rollins exerted extreme patience never to push him. Just waited day after day.

Rumlow might still be more or less amnesic, but he was not a stupid man by any means. He suspected what Rollins was waiting for, but he gave no particular attention to the possibilities. He could just be selfish and wait because a memory was better than starting again he found, sort of like opening a Christmas gift and actually finding a pleasant surprise inside rather than bitter disappointment.

He paused by the full-length mirror next to where their baggage was stored, peering out from under blotting white towel, his hand still ruffling at his hair. He draped the towel around his bare shoulders and stared at the face that he now owned, turning the left side of his face towards the mirror to examine the considerable scarring found there.

Around his left eye, brushing along his forehead, over his cheek and caressing the side of his lips was all mottled red burn damage. His earlobe appeared to have been melted off like wax, leaving only a hole to allow him to hear with, but his perception of where a sound happened to be difficult now, forcing him to so often lead with his right ear tilted forward. There was some scarring around his right eye, but it wasn’t nearly as intensive. His skin looked and felt like it was stretched and bunched too tightly over his bones. There were spots on his shoulders where he had been burned, but it was a lesser degree burn there, so easier to accept.

Rollins had showed him a picture of what he had used to look like, and while he still bore that rough grizzled look, there was something distinctly less cocky about how he held himself. He was far more guarded and tended to wander around with an angry ramrod straightness to his spine and a vengeful look in his eye. It was also clearly impossible that he would ever be able to hide in a crowd. As his second said, his appearance invited attention and remembrance.

“Tell me something that old me would have said,” he demanded as he stared at his appearance, a new little game that he had taken up in the last month or so. Like Simon Says but more personal.

“We aren’t villains,” Rollins replied blandly. “When you recruited me, that was what you told me on my first day in HYDRA.”

“What?”

“People of HYDRA, people like us… we’re viewed us as villains, and we aren’t. We are the people who are willing to make the hard choices and perform the unsavoury actions that everyone else can’t bring themselves to admit needs to be done.” Rollins was watching him very closely, as if waiting for a protest. He sometimes spouted SHIELD rules from time-to-time after all. “We push the world towards its necessary chaotic paranoid end by any means necessary.”

“What makes us God to decide whose lives to ruin,” he asked after a moment in thought.

“We aren’t. We joined so that mathematics would decide,” Jack said softly. “Statistics, number crunching… that impartial cold view on people and action will decide. We are just setting the world up so that when INSIGHT went up… the world would be ready for the sudden jarring results that were required to come from an impartial set-up.”

Rumlow finally turned away from the mirror and drew the towel off of his shoulders, dropping it on the back of the desk chair. He approached Rollins until they were barely inches apart, turning his face up to stare at his second-in-command. “We believed in _math_ to be objective and unbiased in creating a new world order?”

Rollins stared down at him. “Zola said it was the only way. He had spent years recruiting HYDRA, making exo-suits, watching humankind stumble and falter time and time again.” Their gazes bore into one another, giving no ground. “Nothing is as objective as an algorithm, as statistical analysis, so nothing can make hard choices better than either of those mediums.”

He blew a strand of drying hair from falling across his forehead. It suddenly struck him why that logic seemed so acceptable. “Turing.”

Jack’s eyes lit up at the single name, giving him a nod and then breaking eye contact in order to turn away and root through a nearby backpack. “It’s proven to work. Mankind cannot be trusted with its freedom, not even to bring it about. We set the stage, but an algorithm will prevent any selfish whims.”

“How,” he asked as he watched Rollins’ back. His newest insightful deja-vu hadn’t provided him any more than what he had spoken on. “How do we know we can’t tamper?”

Rollins stood and shoved today’s newspaper against his chest. “Because Zola was a computer when he made the final version of it. He was just numbers and far more coldly objective than he had ever been in life.”

Rumlow took the paper and then the pen that was offered, padding over to the single stained bedspread and sitting down upon it. He stretched out his legs and leaned back against the headboard, the sound of fake orgasm noises and dirty talk louder now. He flipped through the paper without looking at any of the articles, searching only for a single interesting aspect and the corner of his lips quirked as he found the daily crossword puzzle.

It wasn’t long before Rollins was joining him on the bed, as shirtless as he was. The larger man settled next to him, bearing old scars as easily and comfortably as he bore his new and old ones. The warmth of Rollins’ right arm settled against his left as he propped up the folded paper on a pillow and began to peruse through the clues. He tapped the end of the pen against the paper, thinking.

“Out with it,” Rollins rumbled at him.

“Would we have survived INSIGHT,” he asked softly, turning his head to look at Rollins.

“No,” Jack replied simply and with no mercy. “We aren’t villains, but neither are we heroes. The new world order had no need of rough men like us.”

“And we accepted that?”

“It was the price of freedom, Rumlow,” Rollins said. “There was no place for us, and so we would die. We were and are the men who would make the difficult choices, carry out the bloody action, and give the necessary push because we believed everyone got what they deserved in the end.”

Rumlow nodded his head and was still for a long moment, processing the information, the hard steel of belief which he sensed still lived inside of Rollins. He analyzed whether or not he could also share that view anymore. He realized that his time with SHIELD, the few scattered memories that he had, and where he was at now no longer lined up with the words that were rattling in his head. It felt like a cross between a personal failure and outgrowing a childish whim.

He looked over at Jack settled next to him and slowly shook his head. “INSIGHT is gone, so now… there is only revenge. I think.”

Rollins took his measure for a long moment before smirking wolfishly down at him, reaching out to card thick strong fingers through his hair. “I thought you would never say that, but now that you’re ready… we can have revenge.”

He nodded his head, returning to the crossword. He reached out with the pen and began to fill it in. He had been getting better with these the last months, not because he had forgotten how to complete them but because he had been so much out of action that he was rusty. Everyday he was given a puzzle and every day Rollins would watch and assist him in completing it. This was their quiet activity now.

And tonight it was to the soft music of a bed hitting the wall rhythmically and the groaning sounds of flesh meeting in one of the oldest rituals of time.

*****

_“Thomson, you get the upstairs. Wrigley, you search the basement then join Thomson upstairs. Riggs and I will divide the main level.”_

_“Searching for the usual?”_

_“Fake identification and a cache of money.”_

_“Right.”_

_“We have two hours. Make them count.”_

Rumlow listened to the four agents discussing their plan for sweeping the middle-class four bedroom house in a quiet little suburban neighbourhood. He was geared up save for the custom mask that Rollins had gotten him to christen his re-entry into combat missions after months out of the fray. The one earphone was against his right earlobe, drinking in the sounds of shuffling bodies that indicating that the group was on the move.

The back of the telephone repair van was warm, but he was eager to stay put and to continue to listen. Eventually though, there was only the sound of a single individual making an obvious and somewhat noisy sweep of the kitchen where the group had started out.

This was the way of SHIELD now, hunters for prizes, signs and caches of HYDRA. With so much information on the internet, it was impossible to empty every property where a HYDRA agent had lived, worked or played, which meant there was potentially valuable information hidden in seemingly ordinary places. If one knew where to look and SHIELD had teams which had mastered the details of sniffing out HYDRA goods stored in all manner of nooks and crannies. They also seemed to have good hunches on which places to look and which to not bother with.

The two-way short-ranged walkie-talkie at his left elbow suddenly came to life with a small burst of static. He turned his head to eye it, removing the other earphone. Rollins’ deep voice growled out the words, “suit up. We move in five.”

Rumlow regarded the walkie-talkie for a long moment before nodding his head. He reached out and picked up the device, bringing it to lips in order to utter, “roger that.”

Rollins was silently apprehensive about putting him in a combat situation without any mock exercises first. He knew that his second trusted him, but Rollins was perhaps more aware of the effects of brainwashing than most and figured that he might have subtle orders of which he hadn’t spoken of or even knew about personally. He was determined to prove himself and the other HYDRA agent acquiesce without more than a mention of shooting him if he turned. Like he was some zombie or something.

He put the earphone to his right side one last time just to make certain that there were just sounds of exploration before he shifted and grabbed his helmet. It was nothing like the half-mask Rollins had dragged him away with. It was more like a hockey goalie mask but with only the eyes showing. It was a ruddy black, but it fit comfortably on his head and hid most of his obvious scarring as well as the fact that his hearing wasn’t optimal on the left side.

He only wore a bulletproof vest and enough belts and holsters for his weapons. This was an operation that required some manner of delicacy, and it was chosen because one of the men who had once been a handler to him was involved. Rollins wanted to see how he would cope in the situation with a small number of people. He would have liked to snap that he wasn’t green, but instead let the potential slight to his skills slide.

However, he remained in the stuffy van until the back doors were pulled open by his second. Rollins was pulling off a company ballcap and tossing it in the van with the equipment required for tapping lines and then suited up with munitions and a Steyr AUG like he was carrying. He waited patiently watching the other HYDRA agent gear up, his helmet resting on his knee.

For now, this was Rollins operation, which meant he was to follow orders. That somehow felt easy regardless of how a part of him chaffed.

These conflicting experiences and sensations had grown annoying a few weeks ago. This was also the first time when he knew that they could not come into play because their lives were on the line if he couldn’t keep himself together for all of this. Today would be a test of what he could do and what he couldn’t.

Rollins stepped away from the van back and gestured for him to gear up. He slipped from the back of the van and pulled his helmet into place before tugging his gloves to hug his fingers more. Then his Steyr AUG was in his hands and they were marching towards the house in question.

Rumlow eased away to circle to the back, slipping in the gate and freezing at evidence that a dog may inhabit the area. The dog house to his left was empty, the chain mostly hidden in the grass. All was quiet, but he took his time crossing the yard to the back door. If a dog had lived here, it was long gone, as evidenced by the pile of old dried up scat next to the steps leading to the door.

He ascended quickly and stopped by the door. He carefully tried the knob, but it was locked and a bit sticky from rust. He bade as previously instructed to wait, breathing in and out while experiencing a familiar thrill which had probably been in his life since he had started to run in operations like these. It was age-old and familiar, like putting on a uniform.

There was a burst of gunfire. Then there was loud cursing.

Someone suddenly opened the back door as if to escape, and that someone - a SHIELD agent - froze in the act of leaving when coming face-to-face with him. Rumlow lifted his Steyr and rammed the butt of the rifle into the shocked agent’s face. There was a spray of hot blood as the man’s nose broke and then a distinct popping noise that he could only associate with a lower jaw coming unhinged on his second quick jab.

He stepped in as the agent fell to the floor, flipping his rifle around and popping a single bullet into the gaping and gasping agent’s skull. Silence followed his entrance, and he reached down and hauled the body deeper into the laundry room so that he could shut the door. He carefully avoided stepping in the growing halo of blood as he moved deeper into the house.

He kept the barrel of his gun aimed towards the floor, his finger resting next to the trigger rather than on it. He swept through the laundry room to a hallway that had a bathroom on a left and storage on the right. As he moved carefully down the hallway further, there was a sudden exchange of gunfire from what he assumed was a stairwell close to the front door.

That put him in good standing to know where Rollins was. He continued his sweep, stepping into the kitchen to find a downed SHIELD agent, blood and brains sprayed across the previously white cupboards. The bottom cupboards were all ajar in some way, clearly indicating the middle of a search.

He moved to the other side of the kitchen, stepping over the cooling corpse and coming out to face a dining room and beyond it a living room. He spotted Rollins pressed against a wall making a quick wrap of his second’s left arm. He purposefully scuffed his boot on the floor, drawing Rollins’ attention and nodding his head at the other agent.

He used the wall as cover as he peered out and towards the stairs. There was no body upon it as far as he could tell, but there was also no noise either. He waited, watching Rollins finish quick operational first-aid on a graze wound and settled for instructions on how they were going to proceed.

There were hand-signals from his second. His eyes fixed and followed them, nodding his head in understanding as the message was conveyed. Two agents upstairs, one unaccounted for, one at least wounded. He would be ascending the stairs with Rollins covering him and then he would sweep into the left side of the upstairs to clear it. Rollins would follow him up and take the right side.

His blood hummed pleasantly in his ears, and he felt more relaxed than he had in weeks. Everything seemed to fall into place, and the clammering thoughts and questions fading back to white noise in his brain. There was a focused clarity, helped perhaps by the snug illusion of drugs entering through his skin by the collar that Rollins had grudgingly allowed him to wear.

He drew in a breath and held it.

Rumlow slipped around the wall and proceeded cautiously towards the stairs, his gun raised to cover himself as he started his ascent. He felt Rollins move out behind him, covering him as he climbed higher and higher until the unaccounted for agent - his handler - stepped out from the left door and fired down at him. It skinned off of his helmet, and he returned fire, certain that he had plugged the man somewhere vital.

He picked up his pace as the agent - Wrigley - stumbled away back where the piece of shit had come from. He knew that handler, he realized with a sharp stabbing clarity. Wrigley was a veteran, a long-term military man who had dedicated to US security and joined SHIELD to extend that to world security. This agent had been one of his first handlers and had literally trained him like a dog with a clicker and reward system that irked him now.

_Nothing in life is free_ had been the motto. He had to earn everything with good behaviour. Well, maybe he’d repay that with another bullet, huh?

He ignored the hissed order to stop from Rollins, climbing to the top of the stairs and proceeding to the left. He paused at the sight of blood spattered on the now closed door, estimating his shot to be a gut wound. There was blood to the right, and he gestured with a sharp hand to indicate to his second in command that there was another agent to put down to the right side of the house.

“Rumlow, hold up,” Rollins ordered.

“Finish the sweep,” he replied coldly.

He shot just above the door handle to blow out the mechanism on the other side and kicked open the door to find himself in a personal study. It hadn’t yet been ransacked or at least not thoroughly, and he stepped inside to check behind the door first and then sweep over to the desk to check under it. Nothing.

As he crossed to the drapes, he stopped at blood spots on the floor leading to the door on his left, perhaps a bathroom or storage. The door was half closed, but he felt certain his quarry was huddled like a well-trained rat inside.

Rumlow approached slowly, lifting his feet with each step so that he could set them down quietly. He sidled up to wall next to the door, listening but both helmet and his decreased hearing made it difficult for him to localize where Wrigley was. He jerked his head forward to look in beyond the half-closed door, sighting a half-bath, but beyond a single blood spot on the floor, no other sign of the handler.

That put the asshole right behind the door, the only defensible position beyond just on the opposite of the wall that he was standing on. Given that he hadn’t just been shot in the head, he took an educated guess that Wrigley was behind the door. He shifted quietly and brought his Steyr to bear on the door.

There was a shout from the opposite side of the house and then a cacophony of gunfire. Glass shattered somewhere. Something heavy fell. Then there was more gunfire.

His eyes stared out from his undecorated helmet, but there was no sign from the agent chased to this small corner of the world. He set his index finger on the trigger and gave a single pull on it, firing through the door and smiling at the grunt that sounded. Wrigley had been on the floor then, he decided.

Blood was seeping out from under the door, spreading like tainted thick water.

Rumlow stepped into the room and around the door, his Steyr rifle leading him and immediately aiming as he found the mortally injured agent. They stared at each other in that tiny half-bathroom and Wrigley’s eyebrows drew together as if to place him.

His right hand remained on the trigger as he reached up and shoved his helmet back from his face, letting it sit on the top of his head. He enjoyed the dawning recognition, the horror that he had come specifically for this man. So many he couldn’t remember before INSIGHT but after… oh, he had enough of those now that the drugs had long ago worn away.

Wrigley looked over his appearance, one arm wrapped fruitlessly around the agent’s middle. For all the knowledge that the man was going to die, there was no pleading, no request for mercy, not even a resigned sigh. This was a man who had a spine and ass of steel and only gave him a measured look.

There was more gunfire beyond their little space.

“I told them it was a mistake to keep you,” Wrigley said softly. It was the man’s natural voice and it held no particular emotion. “You were so eager to please, so willing to be loyal, but there was always a shadow of your treachery lurking inside of you.”

Rumlow set his left hand back on the Steyr rifle to keep it steady as he stared down at his former handler. “You trained me like a dog.”

“You were such a good agent. So many people respected and trusted you and your gruff ways. You were sharp as a tack, detail-oriented, and never asked a duty of someone you yourself wasn’t willing to complete,” Wrigley said as if having never heard him speak at all. The man was so far gone that it was ravings of a dying agent of SHIELD. Why did such talk make him uncomfortable then? “They chose you over me for leader of STRIKE. My pride stung, but I saw their reasons and got over it. You were such a leader. No one got away with anything in your operations.”

He didn’t lower his weapon despite how much these appeared to be the ravings which seemed like this was going to be a story for the ages. He instead flicked his eyes towards the half-closed door because the firing on the other side of the house had ceased. All was quiet by the soft words that Wrigley placed down. The agent was watching him but it was clear that the man wasn’t seeing him.

“They gave you to me fresh from the hospital. Like you were a puppy coming from some shelter. Eager to please. So willing to be a soldier.” Wrigley finally sighed heavily and went still, and for a moment, he thought the agent had died. “I trained you back up to shape, but it was all wrong. I disagreed with my superiors….”

Suddenly, the SHIELD handler’s gaze cleared and stared at him, blinking slowly before coughing and leaning over as blood dripped from the man’s lips. Wrigley groaned with a low pained sound, shuddering. With a thrash of failing legs, the door closed with a soft click. He remembered seeing such a reaction in someone bleeding out, that last desperate instinctive response of a body fighting the inevitable.

“You’re dying,” he stated coolly.

“You’ve lost your edge,” Wrigley replied and struggled to sit upright again. The man leaned heavily on the wall and a metal clinking on the floor drew his attention.

Rumlow’s finger squeezed the trigger, splattering Wrigley’s brains and skull on the wall. Then the stun grenade detonated.

His vision was whited out, his hearing reduced to a ringing buzz, and his back hit the wall hard enough to dent the drywall before he hit the floor disoriented and the breath knocked out of him. His head was so blank it was probably supposed to be frightening, but he lay stunned on the floor staring blindly forward, not even seeing the blood creeping ever closer. Suddenly, it was like the drugged state again; God had it been just like this or what?

He wasn’t even aware of Rollins kicking the door half off of its hinges and storming into the room. His vision hadn’t cleared even as he was manhandled up from the floor and forced to lean heavily on his second in command as he was forcefully removed from the room and could only half-stumble in an attempt to keep up.

Something in his head was jarred and floating around. Was it a thought? Was it a memory? It slipped away when he tried to focus any attention upon it. Yet, the more this _something_ weaseled away, the more of his attention was drawn to it rolling about his skull.

The pressure around his skull eased, and he was encased in darkness. The ringing buzz persisted in his ears, and he was only distantly aware of his need to blink his eyes. There was a sudden slap to his right cheek, then a little shake, and he did what any normal man would do without sight nor hearing.

He flipped Rollins the bird.

It must have been enough because he was laying flat on his back staring sightlessly forward, his body aware of the gentle motions of a vehicle in motion, but his limited attention focused inward. He was trying to corner the flapping, flipping weasel teasing his stunned brain. Every thought that he had finally done the impossible came and then it slipped away again. All around him, his mind felt like it was fraying down to nothing more than frayed and loose strings. He was disconnected. He needed a personal check-in...

He was Brock Rumlow, but sometimes he could only stand being referred to as Frag. He had once been the leader of STRIKE, and a damn good lead he was.

_Suddenly, the dead faces of the cement factory appeared, parading by with accusing looks. They glared at him, tongues wagging from their mouths before those simply fell off so that their lower lip and chin were instead soaked with blood. Their eyes became empty, black holes in their faces which then also melted like a wax figure brought too close to the flame._

_Other faces paraded by, bloated and staring. Men, women, children, and he knew none of them, but he also had the impression that his presence in their lives had been manipulative and violent. Their skin burst up to layer squirming worms on the ground. Like lost thoughts finally finding the dirt to thrive in._

_Then he was in a morgue. There were four stainless steel tables in the brightly lit room, and all four were occupied with a naked individual. Their faces were covered in a cloth and their bodies had photos pinned to their flesh. There was the gentle pith-pith-pith of blood dripping into the tubs, each one timed to hit against the metal so that bloody music was sewn together. All for him to hear._

_He found himself approaching the closest body, the one with a metal arm on the left side. He couldn’t help but stare at the pictures which came into sharp focus before him. It was of a skinny blond man, lips swollen and bloodied, knuckles opened and held up in clear defiance. Another of the same skinny man struggling with a push-up. The next was that face with a big broad body, flushed with health. Then more and more of little events, all recorded in black and white._

_His fingers grasped the leather cloth that covered the dead man’s face and pulled it back like a magician revealing the trick of the evening. Beneath was a dark-haired face that stared up at him, blue eyes moving over his features before sighing. “What’s the worth believing in anything?”_

_The body suddenly froze and then broke apart like ice in the warming sea. They melted to nothingness, leaving behind only a puddle that gurgled down the drain._

_Rumlow had no choice but to move on to the next in line, a woman based on the rise of her chest, but she was covered modestly in pictures just like the last. They were harder to focus on, little events like a tea party and then one of a bright day with rows of people standing for a wedding. There was a handsome man in many, smiling even in the midst of violence. The one that caught his attention the most was a single picture tacked to her neck of a single yellow daisy; it stood proud and healthy, unburdened with the pain of a life of bad choices and helplessness._

_The silk handkerchief was pulled back to show the face of a beautiful woman, her dark hair in long shiny straight lines. Her dark eyes seemed to pierce him, but her dower expression mocked the beauty of the flower still stuck at her neck, bleeding her life-blood from her. “Why is it so important to right old wrongs?”_

_Suddenly, her stomach swelled up, only to burst like a abscess with a sour alcohol smell as she bubbled away to a red mess. He gagged but could not vomit._

_He was by the third body before he could conceive of the fact he didn’t want to be there or here at all anymore. Yet, his eyes were drawn to the many pictures of little strawberry blond girls running through a wheat field. There were pictures of cityscapes, their lights twinkling like stars on the velvety horizon. A few were the flags of nations, others of a pretty blond woman weathered by age but with a smile that could melt even the toughest opposition._

_The thick tactical cloth was removed by his fingers, and the craggy old face that stared up at him bore a hint of a smirk. Clear blue eyes seemed to take him in and perhaps found him lacking because there was a low soft t'sking noise. “Who do you want to be when you grow into your skin?”_

_Blood spilled out of two bullet holes on the old man’s chest, leaking everything from the inside out, so that all that was left was an empty balloon of skin flattened against the rungs of the table grate._

_Rumlow tried to stop his feet from leading him to the last body, but like any dream where one couldn’t wake, he had no choice but to see it through to the other end. When he tried to back away, he instead moved forward to the last table, the lights above his head flickering angrily at his resistance. Those three previous questions clogged up his mind, focused him to the pictures that were laid like scale mail armour._

_He stood beside the last body and his eyes skipped over the many pictures that were pinned to flesh so well he couldn’t even tell if this person’s skin tone. They were pictures of him, every single one of them. Him smirking. Him throwing his head back in a free laugh. Him standing proudly beside an aquarium tank with two damaged leering piranhas. Him eating. Him sleeping against a cargo-pant clad thigh. Him with his hair a mess but a pleased carefree expression on his face. Over and over they stood out, one on top of the other, until his eyes fixed on a single small image - barely noticeable under the larger ones._

_Despite himself, he reached out and plucked the photo from where it had been pinned in the dead man’s right hand. He lifted it and stared at a photo still of a single moment in time. A selfie. Rumlow and Rollins clad only in sweat pants, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder and smiling like the charming arrogant youngsters that they appeared to be. A deep red hickey stood out starkly against Rollins’ shoulder, and it was only in staring at it which drew his attention to the way that Rollins’ arm disappeared behind his back, large possessive fingers clasping his waist on the opposite side of where Jack sat._

_The pillow case which had been folded over the dead man’s face slid away with no help from him. The flat face that regarded him held that hunger which he had seen here and there over the last weeks. Still waiting. He met the gaze unflinching, lifting his chin as if to dare this dead man to speak an untrue question to him. It came simply as, “what are you waiting for?”_

_Instead of fading away, the corpse sat up and reached out to poke him once in the chest. Rumlow felt himself shatter into a thousand pieces._

He came back to himself with the shift of warm sheets under his bare back, his fingers curling in the comforter which was tucked close around him. There was a cool cloth over his eyes, keeping him from potentially being blinded by the light of whatever room he happened to be in. There was an undertone of buzzing in his left ear, but his right appeared to be able to focus better on the gentle murmur of voices.

“...too soon…”

“...better than expected…”

“...’ll apologize…”

“...what? For giving him a chance at having a life back? You should…”

He turned his head slightly tuning out the noise to analyze his own personal well-being. He appeared to be unharmed, though his face stung and a headache threatened him. There was the ebb and flow of voices, the waves of conversation that he knew were happening nearby, but they really made little difference to where he lay. It reminded him of the soft bed in a badly painted house with dishes on the tables and walls and plastic on the furniture.

Was that what better times felt like now?

The horrors and images of his dream trickled back. They came on insidious and insistent, playing under his eyelids like a movie on repeat. He forced himself to pick out details on each little play through to distract himself from the collapsing corpses and their burning questions.

_The piranhas were Sarge and Cap. He had accidentally captured Sarge in his gumboot when he had lost it in the Amazon flooding. He had taken the little bastard home, only to bring Cap in a few months later. The pair liked to eat fingers like two dogs playing tug-o-war. They were held in by glass, never knowing that a single crack in their world would send them to the floor flopping about and dying. Like two other special people he had once known._

He shifted on the bed, rolling onto his side slowly and ignoring the way that the conversation went silent. He curled an arm up enough to hold the cloth in place and made no more effort to rise than that. The conversation resumed. So did the cycle of his dream.

_Pierce had liked his audacity to start, then his cunning and resourcefulness. Who else would dare to take the wallet right out of a rich man’s pocket while pretending to run away with the rest of the children? Pierce had seen in him, not a punk mongrel, but an asset to tap and mold._

There was that space that was between wakefulness and being asleep. He was in that point, his eyes closed and his body sleeping but his mind active and playing whatever tricks it could manage on him. He wanted to either be awake or asleep, not in between where his control was so limited.

_The Winter Soldier seized him by the throat with that metal hand and lifted him clean from the ground. He hung there, his eyes fixed on that cold face in which blue eyes promised death. He didn’t even raise his hands to claw at the limb. He only said, “easy, son. Easy now, we’ve got a few things left to do. Put me down.” And the Soldier did._

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the room around him was silent except for the gentle scratch of a pen on paper. It was intermittent and just when he thought that he was imagining it, there was another scratch on paper again. He was alone with Rollins, wasn’t he?

The cloth over his eyes was dry. The ringing in his ears had subsided. The headache had drained away as if it had never been.

_Rollins’ face was a bleak rainbow of colours that ranged from black to purple to yellow and green, one eye swollen shut and the man’s lower lip jutting out because of how cracked and swollen it was. The one good eye stared balefully at anyone that came within line of sight, but he swaggered right up and plunked himself down with his tray of food and ignored the death glare. He simply started his meal and set one foot lightly on top of Rollins’ one._

Rumlow felt the bed dip as a new weight settled down on it, and he felt his body slide a little towards the slope of where Rollins’ body had come to rest. There was some shifting as the HYDRA agent settled comfortably and then shut off the light with an audible click. He heard the soft sigh and the final shifting as Rollins stilled for a night of rest or perhaps a night of waiting on a diligent watch.

He abandoned the dry cloth from over his eyes and turned over to face where Rollins was settled nearby. He heard the sound of Jack’s head turning more than saw it, what with the room pitch black.

“We were lovers,” he stated as much as questioned.

Beside him, Rollins stiffened and then clearly made an effort to relax. “We rolled in the sheets when it suited us to, nothing more.”

“You were possessive of me,” he put out like a knife trying to find a weakness in the armour built around Rollins.

Jack wasn’t going down easily. “You were a fine man; many people wanted you, even just your attention.”

“You loved me,” he finally accused.

“I liked our private time when it ever came up,” Rollins smoothly replied.

Finally, he took another path to attack. “Did I… did I love you?”

He felt the bed shift as the other HYDRA agent went very still, either to think on the answer or to come up with a lie to deter him from this line of questioning. He couldn’t tell the expression on Jack’s face, but he suspected that it was either glaring into the dark or deeply contemplative. He waited, patient as a wolf in the bushes for the rabbit to make a wrong move.

“You weren’t capable of love,” Rollins said. “You were born to lead, and you dragged everyone along in the wake of your momentum whether they wanted to or not.”

It was his turn to be very still, fighting the urge to get up and pace the room, to burn off energy that was building up inside of him. Was it there to allow him to flee or fight? Yet, images flickered through his mind, little stills of smiles, laughter and companionship that he had taken the reins of when it suited him to. He came and went as he pleased, never forgetting, never ostracizing, but never committing to anything but the ideal that he served.

Like a tornado sucking everyone in. They marveled at him, respected him, but in the end, they either went with his savage dedication or were thrown aside like broken fences, downed trees and ruined homes.

“Our time together meant something,” he said, confusion warring with the lameness of his tone. Where was all that charm that he had clearly possessed? It had to be lurking around somewhere. “You used to make me laugh.”

Rollins huffed softly. “You laughed with many people.”

“But I only smiled for you,” Rumlow replied.

He felt and heard the sharp intake of breath from next to him, and he swelled with triumph. He had hit a mark, slipped between the sheets of armour and struck home. Maybe he had damaged but more likely he had forced Rollins to back off of the denials.

Suddenly he was punched in the shoulder, knocking him back. He savagely kicked Rollins back in the side of the knee and they were shoving each other even as they rose up to kneel on the bed, blankets flung aside and ramming their bare chests together like battling baboons. Rollins’s hands caught his wrists tightly, twisting them to the point of painful, and he dared to knee the larger man right in a pressure point on the thigh.

They shoved back and forth, growling and hissing at each other wordlessly. He twisted his wrists free and Rollins jabbed him in a kidney with a finger. Jack tried to shove him right over, and he slithered to the side and got his shoulders under one arm and one of his own hooked around Rollins’ neck, locking in before he was displaced with an elbow to the jaw. Back to shoving, struggling, punching, kicking, clawing and then biting at each other, always returning to warring their strength with the power of their thighs and their chests.

Maybe it was some bizarre manly mating rituals between HYDRA agents. It was the first thing since waking that had felt _right_.

Neither of them backed down, even when they ended up thrashing for top spot, leaving behind red lines of welts and tender spots where bruises would form. It seemed that Rollins steamrolled over him when it was clear that he wasn’t about to have some kind of mental episode or that he would break under the physical pressure of this war. All those hungry looks, all that patience ended for a wild and passionate pinning to the mattress where he suspected an imprint of his body would still be there by morning, a crater of Rumlow.

Afterwards, Rollins slept deeply, probably more so than the HYDRA agent intended. A large thick arm curled across his back, fingers now lax after their possessive hold, and he felt the warm exhales against his shoulder as he lay belly-down. His cheek was nestled into the pillow, though it was half-ripped from their destructive physical reunion.

Slowly, his eyes opened, blinking in the darkness as he sluggishly came awake. His gaze flicked down to the end of the bed where a shadow lurked, a single ray of moonlight glancing off of a silver arm with a red star printed on the shoulder. A lesser man - or maybe just one with all their memories - would have panicked.

Rumlow lifted his head and peered through the shadows that their guest had so perfectly blended into. The arm in the light had been completely intentional, angled just perfectly so catch his eye and not that of sleeping Rollins next to him.

“What are you looking at,” he asked softly, curiosity winning over wariness.

“What happiness looks like,” the Winter Soldier said so softly that the words could have been just another mind dream.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alan Turing helped to break the Nazi coding machine, Enigma, during the Second Great War. After breaking the code, he convinced his team and intelligence officers of using statistics to make movements which would allow the Allies to win the war without revealing that German communications had been compromised.


	4. But I Knew Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually going to be a lot longer, but after writing about 5K words, it didn't feel right for where I wanted things to be. So, I deleted that and went with what I originally had. I probably should have just tacked this onto the last chapter, but I had intended to expand with another mission. However, that would have expanded this fic to a bit more than I had originally intended.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read this.

*****

Slowly, he extracted himself from under the weight of Rollins’ arm, easing to his feet only to hiss and have to hitch his step to move away from the bed at all. Previous wetness had dried to the skin of his thighs and now more seeped from rather abused aspects of his anatomy. He gave a little crow-hop as he moved to the end of the bed to place himself in easy striking distance of the grim watchful shadow that had come to pay them a visit.

The Soldier shifted, easing that metal arm back into the shadows. He knew that he was being watched closely, and if the former HYDRA asset had better night vision than he did, was surely able to see all the damage to his skin. He limped ever closer, little hops that probably would have earned a snort of amusement or a knowing look from anyone else.

Instead, he ignored both the small piles of their discarded pants and the potential to have his head punched off of his shoulders, and he limped towards the door without any shame of his nudity. He pulled open the sliding glass doors to the balcony, certain that was how their uninvited guest had managed to slip in unnoticed in the first place. They were on the sixth floor, not ideal for a quick escape, but the balcony was high enough where it would be difficult to see anyone lounging upon it. Most of the buildings in the area were only four storeys or less in height.

The moon was almost full, shining down silver light upon the cement pad that he stumbled out on, hissing as abused stiff muscles pulled and damaged skin protested. He shifted over to the furthest of the two cheap plastic chairs, the material cool and soothing on his ass when he plunked himself down without a care in the world. He stretched his legs out so that he could rest his feet against the metal bars of the railings.

The Soldier did not follow him immediately, but Rumlow waited the other amnesic out. A brief thought that the Soldier might kill Jack occurred to him, but he passed it off as a paranoid caution. Why bother waking him if only to kill his second in command still sleeping beyond the need to hurt him? That could have been done while he was still sleeping in bed.

Like a wraith, the Winter Soldier stepped out onto the balcony and silently moved over to take the other seat. Their backs were to the wall and both of them took a moment to survey the area for signs of danger. That metal arm glinted in the light, but there was no one out there at such an ungodly hour to see it.

Oddly, there was a sense of companionship that he didn’t even feel with Rollins here. He relaxed, yawning despite of himself and feeling the scarred skin of his face pull with the gesture. He didn't slouch, but he reclined in the chair like a king, folding his hands behind his head as he regarded the cooler night that surrounded them.

For a time, there was only silence between them. Both of them basked in the companionship of another's presence without the strain of expectation.

Rumlow wondered if he and this Soldier had ever had such a relationship before, or if it had come about because they had both lived similar lives. Albeit, his version of was decidedly shorter, and he had been known to almost everyone who he had passed in the hallways rather than living his amnesic life as a whispered shadow from the dark. He then had to wonder if the Soldier had ever been spat on or cussed at by apparent allies. Was that just him?

Finally, after a long silence, he turned his head to regard the Winter Soldier who sat almost completely still next to him. "How did you find us?"

"The house that SHIELD was investigating was swarmed by many teams," the Soldier said frankly. "Neighbours witnessed a man in combat gear carrying out another who had a helmet on. A surveillance camera showed the face of a HYDRA agent."

He nodded his head in acceptance. He doubted that Rollins had taken extreme care in leaving with him in the condition that he had been. It would be far worse to be caught and taken alive. "So you tracked us down."

"I followed a technician's vehicle after recognizing him at a traffic light. He took me right to you."

Ah, so that meant that the second voice that he remembered had been Ed, was it? That was awful sloppy, but then again, the Soldier was a step above many others. "Did you come to kill us?"

"No," came the oddly quiet reply.

He raised the ridge of flesh where his eyebrow was supposed to be. Slowly, he reached out a hand and set it on the Soldier's wrist, holding it with a light touch. He was a bit surprised that he kept his arm for his boldness, but the Soldier was back to staring out across the city lights, either not aware of his hold or not minding it at all. He let the silence return, studying the other man quietly.

The Winter Soldier, from the hazy memories he had, was a powerful man. It wasn't just the metal arm which gave the impression, but the set of the Soldier's shoulders and the broadness of the dark-haired man's chest and muscle-thick thighs. There was also a quiet certainty, a strength of steel which stood out in the Soldier's bearing even when sitting perfectly still like now. Those blue eyes were as sharp as ever, perhaps more so with flickers of memory and thoughts streaming behind that highly intelligent gaze.

The assassin had probably bathed earlier in the day. There was a blush of health which hadn't been there from the few clear memories that he had. The cryostasis and the rigors of HYDRA training had kept the Soldier physically healthy, but there wasn't the impression of actually truly being alive there. Now it radiated outwards like he sat next to a fire. It exposed a different kind of strength, one that he knew better than to discount or cross.

"Rollins said that HYDRA agents were looking for you," he murmured softly.

"White noise said that HYDRA still assumes you're dead," the Soldier replied back.

"I survived," he retorted quietly.

"So did I," the former assassin said gently.

They looked at each other, and he sensed a deep understanding was enfolding them. His fingers tightened on the Soldier's flesh wrist, and he exhaled a sigh. He saw those metal fingers glint in the moonlight and then reach across to run down the deeply scarred left side of his face. Those fingers were cool against his heated flesh, and he leaned into the caress. That seemed to make the Soldier bolder, palm coming to settle against his cheek and fingers splaying across his temple and the bridge of his nose, two digits settling dangerously close to his eye. It felt good to have that coolness on his hot scarring though.

His hand shifted up and down so that his fingers and palm stroked the Soldier’s right forearm, smoothing over the thin cotton shirt that separated their flesh. He found a simplicity and understanding in that touch, and he suspected he wasn’t alone in that.

"Do you remember everything that was taken from you," he asked softly.

The Soldier considered his words for a long moment, hand still smoothing over the rippling whirls of scarring on his skin. The silence was companionable. "Not everything, and that which I do remember is... jumbled. I mix up names and faces, cities and missions. It is resolving over time." There was a brief pause before the Soldier looked at him. "Do you?"

Rumlow looked over in slight surprise. Unless the Soldier was tampering in new SHIELD files, there was probably no reference that he was anything but who he presented himself. "What makes you think I've forgotten anything?"

He was given a knowing look. "You bear the lost look of someone who can't remember. When you look out at the world around you, you’re waiting poised for some clue to trigger something which was taken from you. I see it in the mirror every day."

He relented immediately. "No, I don't remember everything," he murmured. "There are times when my life running operations as an agent of SHIELD mixes with my memories of operations that I was sent in as Frag."

"Frag?"

"It was the name that the SHIELD handler's gave me," he muttered, shaking his head a bit. "I think it was shortened for 'fragment', but who knows. They never told me more than I needed to know at any one time."

The Soldier's metal hand dropped away, caressing his shoulder before pulling away entirely. "There is importance in a name."

He made a noise of acceptance. "There is memory in a name, a sense of self. When they take that away, you have build yourself fresh around the word they decide to call you."

They lapsed back into silence, the former assassin's head turning to some distant sound that he only picked up much later as an emergency vehicle siren. The city was otherwise quiet, and in that stillness, the Soldier turned the right hand over and he slid his own hand down until they tangled their fingers together.

It was nothing like how his fingers had desperately curled for grip in Rollins' just hours before. There was no passion in the contact, only one man offering a sense of comfort where one might otherwise be denied. He realized in that moment that the Soldier was seeking comfort in the same act as willingly giving it to him, and he almost laughed at the oddly similar pair that they made.

Finally, the Soldier asked, "do you hate SHIELD?"

He felt a moment of conflict, but for one reason or another that he couldn't quite explain, he thought that honesty was the best policy. Who else might have a hope of understanding? "I don't know... sometimes I want revenge on them for how I was treated, but on the other side of the fence, SHIELD could have done a lot worse to me."

"They are the reason you are still alive." Both of them knew that was true. HYDRA had been in no position to remove him from the rubble or give him long-term medical care. "That's the same with HYDRA, for me. If not for them, I would be dead at the bottom of a ravine. In a way, they are like a second family to me."

Rumlow stiffened in his chair, his head turning rapidly to peer at the Soldier next to him. He pursed his lips. "I betrayed SHIELD and they kept me alive anyway because I was useful."

The Soldier's lips twitched in what might have been an attempt at a smile. "I destroyed HYDRA personnel and equipment, and they kept me alive because I was useful."

"Fuck," he barked, shaking his head. “Worst family dynamics ever.”

“But we still owe them for our lives,” was the reply. “As much as I owe Steve for setting me free.”

And as much as he owed Rollins for setting him free again. Were their sudden stark similarities supposed to be unnerving? He didn’t feel that way at all. If anything, he derived comfort for being on the same wavelength as someone else.

Slowly, the former assassin moved closer to him, and, as if he knew the purpose beforehand, he leaned in until their temples came to rest against each other. His scarring twinged with the pressure, but he closed his eyes and just savoured the contact. Next to him, the last of the barriers that the Soldier had in place fell and there were suddenly thick arms around his shoulders dragging him from the chair that he was seated so that they on to the cement floor of the balcony. It allowed him to slip his arms around the Soldier's waist as they held tight on each other.

"Was I cruel to you when I was your handler?"

"No, you were firm but asked nothing that you wouldn't yourself do or knew were beyond my abilities," the former assassin whispered. "You're softer now. I wonder if you'll be a better agent of whatever you choose to be."

He bristled slightly at the insinuation. "Softness means weak in my books."

There was a snort from the doorway beyond them, and neither of them turned their heads much more than was required to catch sight of Rollins leaning against the door frame of the balcony. The HYDRA agent had put on a pair of pants but hadn't bothered to do them up fully, but there was a glint in Jack's eye as the agent took them both in with a long look. Let no one mistake Rollins' quiet nature as anything but cunning logistics.

Rumlow was the first to speak. "You've got something to say?"

"In the past, you would never have let me top you in bed. You would have fought like a wolverine for the top spot regardless of how long it took and how much I retaliated," Rollins said. He felt his cheeks flush in response. "You're softer, it's true, but you are by no means weak."

The Soldier's arms tightened around him. "You have something to lose and that makes you even more dangerous."

Jack smirked, clearly having heard the former assassin's words. "You believed in the mission, never in people. Never completely anyway. It was such an alluring feature that drew people to you. Like moths to a flame, but they always got burned. Now… who knows what will happen."

"I don't love you," Rumlow shot back, as if to reaffirm his manliness.

Rollins simply issued a low growling chuckle. "Brock Rumlow is incapable of love."

Yet, the Soldier pulled away from him and rose before offering a hand to him. "Perhaps being a fragment of your former glory drops certain defenses to allow you capable of it this time. I don't remember you wasting opportunities before, so don't let this one slip by you."

He growled and grabbed the Soldier's hand, pulling himself up and having to do a little crow hop to keep him toppling over again. He bared his teeth at both men and then shoved at the Soldier, but the former assassin as immovable as a brick house. "Why aren't you with Rogers anyway?"

Like a child throwing stones at a glass house. He hit something in the Soldier and felt a single stab of regret.

"I'm not ready," came the soft reply.

"Then stay with us," Rollins rumbled from the doorway. "Two amnesics can't be harder to handle than one. Honestly, the two of you together practically makes one person as far as memories go."

Rumlow glanced sharply at Jack, aware that the HYDRA agent would have known how valuable information on the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier would be. It could earn the man back a respectable rank, slide back into where Rollins perhaps thought the man ought to be by now. He rolled over the idea of how much fame Rollins would achieve bringing in himself - a skilled and ruthless commander of HYDRA - and the Winter Soldier together. It would be like winning the annual HYDRA Christmas lottery pool.

Yet, Rollins wasn't interested in those kind of riches, was he? If that were true, Rollins would have already handed him over to HYDRA. He knew that the agent was dipping into personal funds to keep them under the radar, never particularly contacting anyone beyond Ed continually as far as he could tell. Rollins had been waiting for him - or certain parts - to come back. Even now, the operation in the house had been about letting him back in action because he had requested it rather than because Rollins was chomping at the bit to shoot some people in the name of HYDRA.

He might have also secretly dug up what he could on Jack Rollins through the information dumped on the internet. A very good agent, slated for advancement for many years but declining captaincy of one of the other STRIKE teams. Rollins could plan and carry out a mission as well as he could, stayed cool in unfavourable situations, had a clean record and no warnings for misconduct on the man's file. The worst thing Rollins had done had been showing up to work badly hung over once and puking in a garbage can.

He could tell that the Soldier was also formulating an opinion on the offer as quickly and with as much surety as he had. Suddenly, the former assassin looked at him. "Why haven't you returned to HYDRA?"

Rumlow wasn't expecting the question. "Because I'm not ready," he admitted.

That answer seemed to satisfy the Soldier, and Rollins finally took a step out from the doorway to the balcony. The other HYDRA agent walked over to the railing and set forearms upon it. He slowly moved around the Soldier to stand next to Jack where he too folded his forearms on the railing and looked out across the city. A moment later, the Winter Soldier settled on the right of him and leaned on the railing. It gave a slight warning creak with their combined weight.

"Call me James," the Soldier finally said.

Both he and Jack looked over, watching the curtain of dark hair stir with the cool breeze. "Call me Brock."

Rollins shifted slightly. "I guess you can call me Jack."

Rumlow had to smirk at that, like they were three awkward ducklings on the first day of school handing out their names like candy in hopes of garnering a friend or two. It was so pathetic, and yet, he found his eyes drawn up to the few stars that he could see in the black night.

"So we're a team now until it's no longer convenient to work together," he asked, looking between the other two men.

"I won't hunt SHIELD or the Avengers," the Soldier - no James now wasn't it? - said.

"I won't hunt HYDRA," he replied.

Jack shifted and leaned further out from the railing, not looking at the both of them. "I know a few guys. We build our names as mercenaries until we're ready to go our separate ways."

It seemed based on the silence that they were in agreement. He pushed off the railing as if to end their conference and reached out to ruffle the Soldier's hair, only to hiss when Rollins swatted his bare ass and made him jump and almost fall over as his abused muscles spasmed. The Soldier caught him and then helped him off of the balcony to go back inside.

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my work, and I appreciate any comments and kudos!
> 
> I will post the next chapter tomorrow, har har.


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